The Snape Family Guide to Espionage
by Aellyr
Summary: If not for chance, Sianna would have lived her entire life in a world where she does not belong. Fortunately, fate is on her side, but is Sianna ready to be launched into a community in the midst of war? PG-13, just to be safe
1. Crossing the Pond

Disclaimer: Let's keep it simple and straight—if you recognize it, it's not mine. JKR, along with the very nice people at Warner Brothers, are letting me play with their toys, so to speak. I promise to clean up when I'm done.  
  
A/N: On the other hand, the characters that you haven't seen before are of my own creation. These include the American Ministry people, Sianna, Aidan, Marion, the Castell family, and any others that might pop up along the way. I do ask that you get permission from me before you "borrow" them, and if I have unwittingly stolen them from someone else, I offer a fervent apology and ask you to please not kill me.  
  
And now, on a lighter note, this is my first fic. I hope it isn't as bad as I think it is, but if what I fear is true, be merciful enough drop me a note telling me to stuff a sock in it or something. The last thing I want is to look like more of a fool than I already am. Well, here you go, enjoy!  
  
Chapter One: Crossing the Pond  
  
Severus Snape meticulously counted the seconds between adding separate measurements of the essence of dandelion, then stirred carefully, mixing the ingredients in a perfect blend. This potion would replenish the hospital ward's stocks, and Snape made sure that it would be as potent and effective as possible. However much the students vexed him, he did not wish any of them dead, especially not at his hands.  
  
A soft knock on the already open door made Snape's head jerk up, and he found Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorframe. At Snape's look, Dumbledore entered without a word. The room was silent for several more minutes, until Snape finally extinguished the fire and left the cauldron to cool. He was thankful that Dumbledore knew not to disturb him while he prepared a potion.  
  
Dumbledore began to speak as Snape cleared his workspace, rebottling unused ingredients and carefully cleaning the knives and spoons. "Good afternoon, Severus. Are you still working on that healing salve for Poppy?" he asked conversationally.  
  
"No, that was the Pepper-Up. It's the last on her list of potions that are running low."  
  
"Of course. Well, I never was any good at Potions," admitted Dumbledore. "But I suppose it is convenient that you have finished your work for her."  
  
"Convenient?" Snape inquired warily.  
  
"Yes, very convenient, in fact," Dumbledore replied vaguely, teasing a question out of his former student.  
  
"What is so very convenient about it?" asked Snape. He knew what the headmaster was trying to do, and he found it much easier to give in to the bait.  
  
"Well, I received a very interesting owl this morning—"  
  
"Was it the owl or the letter that intrigued you?"  
  
"Very funny, Severus. So when I received this letter, I thought that you would be the perfect candidate to solve the problem."  
  
Snape took a seat across from the headmaster and gazed at him expectantly, calmly waiting for him to finish his explanation. Dumbledore stared back for a moment before continuing, "The American Ministry of Magic has detected an unauthorized concealment charm, but they cannot seem to find the source."  
  
Snape gave a short, smug laugh at the thought that the Americans could not even manage to break a simple concealment charm.  
  
Dumbledore laughed a bit with him, then said, "Yes, that's what I thought as well, but apparently this is giving them quite a bit of trouble. They haven't got a clue what they are dealing with."  
  
"Exactly who sent you this letter? The Americans give the impression of being much too arrogant to look outside their own borders for help," Snape asked Dumbledore cynically.  
  
"You see, I have a friend in the Ministry who happens to be head of the Department of Magical Investigation and Law Enforcement. She's quite a liberal actually, and as her department is in charge of this little problem, she saw fit to contact me," Dumbledore answered. "The Minister shouldn't be bothered about a little thing like this," he added with a wink.  
  
"I see," Snape said slowly, quite amused by Dumbledore's contact. "So you want me to go to America and help them? I suppose I could, as I have hit a bit of a break in my work." 'Those Yanks would lose their heads if we didn't go over and tighten the screws every so often,' he thought to himself.  
  
"Good, very good," Dumbledore said, pleased to have caught Snape in a halfway pleasant mood. He hadn't expected such an easy acquiescence. "You'll be leaving tonight, then?"  
  
Snape looked surprised at the sudden departure, but nodded his head. "I don't see why not. I'll leave after dinner. Which is now, isn't it?" he said after glancing at the clock that adorned his wall.  
  
The two men left together in a companionable silence.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * When he arrived at the apparition point inside the American Ministry of Magic building, Snape was slightly surprised to find himself in a decidedly unremarkable business building, quite the opposite of its British counterpart. The plain walls of the hallway reminded him of a hospital, as did the industrial lighting. Only the clean, well-polished granite flooring suggested otherwise. At that moment, a very young man, probably an intern or an office assistant, rushed up to him. After affirming his identity, the over-zealous boy whisked him away, heading directly for the lift.  
  
As they traveled upwards, Snape noted the absence of a magical voice to direct visitors to the proper level. 'Perhaps visitors are not so common here,' Snape thought, realizing that the lobby where he had arrived had been entirely empty save for him. The lift stopped several floors up, and the boy got out and escorted Snape down several unremarkable corridors to what appeared to be a meeting room.  
  
A young, bossy-looking woman appeared at the door of the room as Snape and the boy approached. She was petite and round faced, and the upright position of her shoulders gave her a look of authority.  
  
"Ah, here we are. You are Severus Snape, right? Good," she said without waiting for a response of any kind. As she spoke, the intern/office assistant jogged eagerly away, presumably to run errands. The woman's loose chestnut bun bobbed as she turned to lead the way to the table that occupied the room.  
  
"I'm Judy Barlow," she said to Snape, although she faced the other side of the room, "head of the Department of Investigation and Law Enforcement. Call me Judy. And this here is Christopher Tucker, he's leading the team that's been assigned this case," Judy explained rapidly, gesturing towards the middle-aged man already seated at the table.  
  
"I understand you are quite knowledgeable about these concealment charms and such," she said, getting right down to business. "Here, take a seat," she offered Snape. It sounded more like a command; this woman was obviously accustomed to a position of authority.  
  
"That is correct," Snape confirmed, not even slightly off balance from the rather overwhelming barrage of bossy energy that seemed to come from Judy. "I have quite a bit of experience making and breaking these particular types of spells."  
  
"Define 'these types,'" Christopher said in a sarcastically joking manner. "We thought we had experience, too, but this thing has stumped even the best of us." The man seemed a bit calmer than his boss, and gave the impression of being slightly amused with their predicament. A half-smile played across his face, and while he looked Snape in the eye, it was clear that he felt neither intimidated nor challenged by a foreign man's presence.  
  
"Illusion. Tracking. Concealing," Snape responded, taking the question seriously. "I did quite a bit of work with this during the last war." He quickly repressed the memories that had often threatened to steal his concentration of late.  
  
Judy put a pair of glasses on and joined the conversation again. "Well that's good, because apparently this spell is a muddle of all those things. Why don't you go ahead and give him a good briefing, Chris." It was not a question.  
  
At that, Christopher dove into a rather intriguing anecdote involving several very confused owls and a frustrated headmaster.  
  
"Well last June, the dean of an American school of magic tried to send a letter to a Muggle-born wizard in the Southern California to tell him he'd been accepted to their school. But the next day, the owl came back, and it still had the letter. The dean thought the owl had gotten lost, so he sent a different owl to the same kid, carrying the same letter. He was really pissed and confused when the owl came back the next day with the letter in its beak. He got really frustrated, sent another owl out, again with the same results. After he finally realized that the problem wasn't gonna fix itself, he called us for some answers. My investigation team decided to send one more owl, and I followed the bird on a broom. I got some interesting results.  
  
"So the owl went straight towards its destination, like it was supposed to, but about four miles away from the kid's house it just got lost, like suddenly it didn't know where it was supposed to be going," Chris continued. "So, we set up an experiment where we sent out fifteen stealth owls (and these are smart birds) to this kid, all from different directions. What we found was a type of invisible circle, about twelve miles wide, and once the owls entered the 'circle,' they couldn't figure out what to do," Chris stated casually.  
  
Snape was intrigued dilemma set before him. He didn't remember having ever heard anything like this before. "Did you perform any other tests?" he asked, hoping that they had done something that would yield more specific or useful information.  
  
"Yeah, sure we did. We crossed into the circle and tried a series of spells, charms, and hexes. Here's a list of the ones that didn't work." Chris rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Snape. His eyes moved down the list quickly, stopping on one spell in particular. He looked up at Christopher.  
  
"You can't apparate into the circle?" he asked incredulously.  
  
"Nope."  
  
Snape looked back down at the list, which also included Point Me, a spell that caused the castor's wand to point North, and another directional spell that made a wizard's wand point to a previously determined place or person.  
  
"And you have absolutely no idea what the cause of all this is?" he asked, already anticipating the answer.  
  
"No...but we sure as hell know what it's not," Chris offered cheerfully.  
  
"We won't solve this by process of elimination..." Snape mumbled to no one, apparently not registering the sarcasm of the statement.  
  
Suddenly he realized that it was past eleven o'clock in England, and he had been working all day. His eyes drooped imperceptibly, and he knew he should get to bed before he fell asleep on the table.  
  
"I believe I have an idea of what we are working with," he lied, trying to end the meeting quickly. "If you don't mind, I would like to retire for the day, as this will take a bit of thought. We can travel to the area tomorrow. Now, if you could show me where I will be staying..." he suggested.  
  
"Of course sir," Julie responded compliantly, and she got up to lead him out of the room.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * Snape, try as he might, could not concentrate on the riddle of the concealment charm. His mind insisted on reliving the last years of the first war, much to his annoyance. He drifted back to the vulnerable time between Hogwarts and true adulthood, the time when his loyalties had remained susceptible to influence. Too many had assumed that he would, of course, fight for the Light, just like his idolized older brother, who was already a trusted and respected member of the Order of the Phoenix by age twenty-one.  
  
'Aidan...' Snape thought, trying to force back memories of love and admiration for his sibling. 'Why should I love him? All the bastard ever did was run away, abandon the cause he was supposedly devoted to. The stupid coward couldn't handle a little loss...as if the rest of us never suffered.'  
  
'That's not all he did, and you know it,' the other, slightly less bitter side of his mind argued. 'He was the only one who ever cared for you, give him some credit at least.'  
  
'He relinquished any credit he had earned the day he left England,' Snape told himself with finality, trying to end the train of thought before it got out of control. 'And he obviously didn't care as much as he led us to believe, since he apparently had no trouble leaving me. '  
  
By this point, Snape had become quite disgusted by the selfish and querulous thoughts that filled his consciousness. He flipped over and blew out the candle rather more forcefully than necessary, then busied his mind by listing the ingredients in Wolfsbane until sleep finally swept over him. Fortunately, the night's thoughts did not pursue him into his dreams. 


	2. Cacherio Personem

Disclaimer: see chapter one  
  
A/N: Hey guys! I'll be updating fairly quickly for the next few chapters. I'm anxious to get this thing underway, but once the story starts rolling, I'll probably slow down a bit. The good news is, we only have six more weeks until we're out for the summer, and then I'll be able write as much as I want. For now, though, it'll be pretty erratic. Well, here's the next installment, enjoy!  
  
Chapter Two: Cacherio Personem  
  
Snape was not the type of person that would wake up in a foreign place confused and wondering where he was—quite the opposite in fact. When the sunlight decided to grace his pillow at about seven-thirty in the morning, he was already showered and dressed in his standard black uniform, searching for breakfast.  
  
He had woken up quite early, having fallen asleep at about 8:00 PM American time, and had occupied himself by racking his brain for any memory of the spell whose effects had seemed so familiar the day before. Unfortunately, no name or incantation had made itself clear, but the feeling of a spell lurking behind his tongue remained, giving Snape some hope of solving the riddle with the help of more clues.  
  
The lodgings in the guest wing of the Ministry building were not familiar to Severus yet, and since no one else appeared to be up and about yet, he spent some time wandering the halls and exploring the layout of the floor. He discovered that this section was substantially more ornate than the business chambers of the previous day, if not as well taken care of. The rooms were empty and lonely, which provided a perfect place for Snape to clear his head and organize his thoughts.  
  
He had been walking for almost an hour when he finally crossed paths with another human being. Fortunately, it was someone he recognized.  
  
"Good morning, Professor Snape," Christopher greeted brightly. "I guess I'm not the only early riser in this place. Are you just exploring, or taking a walk, or what?"  
  
For some unfathomable reason, Snape found himself offended by the other man's cheer, which had interrupted his quiet and pensive mood. "I was looking for some type of breakfast room, as everyone seems to have forgotten to mention where meals are held," he said bitingly, effectively conveying his annoyance.  
  
Christopher was taken aback by Snape's manner. 'He seemed a lot nicer yesterday,' Christopher thought to himself as showed Snape to the meeting room in which breakfast was being held. (There was no official dining hall in the Ministry, as they very rarely had need for one.)  
  
Judy and the rest of Christopher's investigation team arrived a few minutes after the two men did, and breakfast was spent discussing the day's plans. The investigation team launched into a discussion of experiments and spells, and Judy explained the travel logistics to Snape.  
  
"We'll apparate to a safe area in California and head to the edge of the circle by broom. If we leave within the next hour, we'll have the entire day to work. You know, because of the time change," she told him. Snape's mind reeled at the thought of having to adjust to another time zone again, but he didn't say anything. It was only one day, after all.  
  
Half an hour later they had gathered in the lobby where Snape had arrived the night before, and Judy was describing the desert valley that they were apparating to, so that Snape could visualize his destination. (This made apparating much simpler.) Judy was not truly needed for the mission, but she had opted to come along for the opportunity to watch Severus work; his reputation for brilliance was not limited to his home country.  
  
"I'll go first, and Professor Snape, you can follow me. The rest of you come after him. See ya in five seconds!" Christopher said jokingly, and disappeared. Severus followed, and the others went after him.  
  
When he arrived in the valley a split second later, Severus was shocked by the dry, scorching air that assaulted his lungs. He fell victim to a short coughing fit before he could control himself, and Christopher, who stood a few feet away, laughed at the candid surprise on his face.  
  
"Don't worry, it's not this bad where we're actually going to work. I can tell you right now though, you're not gonna be happy in those robes," he warned Severus, and laughed again.  
  
Christopher did not catch Snape's swift glare, as he had already turned away and begun to speak with one of the others. Snape walked over to get a broom, damning the desert and wondering how the hell anyone could live in such an arid climate year round. He had already begun to sweat.  
  
As soon as the rest of the group had arrived and chosen a broom, they kicked off from the ground, Christopher in the lead and the rest trailing behind in no particular order. The cool wind refreshed the young men and women on the team, and they enjoyed the short flight while it lasted. Some of the former Quidditch players wove playfully between the others, executing lazy loops and corkscrews. Snape longed to join them, but he had to keep up appearances.  
  
When they landed at their final destination, the investigators headed off to begin the tests they had discussed at breakfast, and Christopher had left to supervise his team. Judy had opted to watch Snape from a distance, realizing that close observation would probably only interfere with his concentration, and so Snape was left to work alone.  
  
The uncomfortable heat quickly returned as Snape thought back to the list of spells he had read the other day. He tried a few more obscure spells that he had suspected would not work, and while his hypothesis was proven correct, he was disappointed in himself for his lack of a constructive plan.  
  
He worked slowly and without result for the remainder of the morning, distracted and slightly dizzy from the hot winds and close robes. The others stopped for a lunch break around noon, but Severus ignored them and kept working, still motivated by the feeling that he knew what this was but could not name it. Only when his head started to ache did he retreat to the shade.  
  
He found an old, low-growing tree and climbed carefully up to its lower branches to sit, preferring tree bark to dirt. There he thought again of Aidan, remembering the last time he had climbed a tree with his then beloved big brother.  
  
He had been seventeen, about to enter his last year at Hogwarts, and Aidan had come home from the city to visit his family. They had sat in the monstrous, ancient tree that had graced the grounds of the Snape mansion for as long as the oldest family members could recall, and talked for hours. The brothers had spoken of their latest secrets and deepest thoughts, of the war and Aidan's job in the Order.  
  
Severus had always loved being Aidan's closest confidante, and there were some things about Aidan that only he knew. 'Like that spell he told me about that day, the one he invented,' Snape recalled. 'It was supposed to keep Death Eaters from finding his house, but it only prevented magical means of discovery...'  
  
Snape sat up suddenly, almost falling out of the tree. The mystery charm he was working on today sounded more than a little like Aidan's spell.  
  
He would not have been so excited if there was no counter spell, but Aidan had been thorough enough to invent one and teach it to Severus, just in case. Snape racked his brain for more information about the spell and its counter spell, but he was having a hard time remembering because he had never used either one. Aidan had deemed his invention useless because while it prevented magical discovery, anyone could find the "hidden" object by non-magic means.  
  
Just then, Christopher sauntered lazily into the view of Snape's focused gaze.  
  
"Have you made any progress?" he inquired.  
  
Snape continued to glare for a moment before he answered haughtily, "Yes. Quite a lot of progress actually."  
  
"You know what spell this is?" Chris asked excitedly.  
  
"I think I do, but unfortunately I cannot recall the incantation. No, you would not know it," he said before Chris could ask the question. "The spell I am thinking of is not what one would call exoteric."  
  
"Oh," Chris said lamely. "Is there anything I can do? You know, to help you remember?"  
  
'Bugger off, maybe,' Snape spat at him mentally. "No, there is not," he said curtly, trying to make the other man leave. Then, an idea occurred to him.  
  
"Actually, Christopher, there is something I need that you may be able to get for me. Does anyone here have access to a Pensieve?"  
  
Christopher looked surprised by the request, but he recovered quickly and told Snape, "I think Judy might have one. Let me ask, I'll be right back."  
  
Snape watched Judy and Christopher converse from his vantage point in the tree, then climbed down and dropped to the ground as Judy approached.  
  
Judy looked up at Snape (she had very far to look, considering their height difference) and said, "The only Pensieve I know of is back at headquarters. Do you need it now?"  
  
"I'd rather get this done today," Snape replied.  
  
"Alright, I should be back in about a half an hour. I'm going to get the thing and bring it here."  
  
Christopher and Snape nodded their understanding and Judy mounted her broom and disappeared from sight.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * *  
  
True to her word, Judy returned before the half hour was up, lugging an undersized Pensieve under her arm. "I hope you don't need a big one," she told Snape. "I couldn't carry anything larger without dropping it. A disadvantage of having short arms."  
  
"That one is fine," Snape replied. He took the Pensieve from her and returned to his patch of shade.  
  
"You're welcome," she snapped to his back, safely out of his hearing range. She heard Chris giggle at her comment and she chuckled with him. They went back to work.  
  
Snape was busy searching for the memory he needed. He concentrated on that day while placed the tip of his wand at his temple and drew the silvery thread from his brain. The memory went into the Pensieve and Snape stabbed the pool with his wand, making it visible to him. Then he tentatively inserted his finger into the swirling substance and steeled himself for his journey back into time.  
  
Colors blurred as his body spun impossibly back sixteen years. Then it all stopped with a jerk and Snape struggled to regain his balance before he fell to the lush green grass that suddenly surrounded him. His eyes soon focused and found the majestic tree that his younger self shared with Aidan. As he approached, conflicting emotions filled his heart and mind. This was the brother that had loved him as no one else had, and the same brother that left him to fend for himself during the most dangerous time in his life. What was he supposed to feel about him?  
  
He harshly shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind when he came in hearing range of his brother.  
  
"Look, you can't tell anyone about this, okay? You never know when this might come in handy, and when it does I don't want anyone to...mess it up," Aidan whispered furtively. It seemed that Snape had arrived in the memory with impeccable timing.  
  
Snape's younger self gave Aidan an annoyed glare. "When was the last time I ratted anyone out? Potter and Co. doesn't count."  
  
"Okay, okay, I was just making sure. So... I've discovered something. Well, invented it, really," Aidan began hesitantly.  
  
"Yes..." Young-Snape urged him.  
  
"It's a spell...that can keep anything from being found with magic."  
  
Young-Snape paused a moment to take it in before asking eagerly, "And anyone?"  
  
"You know, I have no idea. I didn't try that."  
  
"Let's try it now then, shall we?"  
  
"No, not now, anyone could be watching," Aidan said with a slight degree of paranoia.  
  
"So...are you going to tell me the incantation or what?"  
  
"I don't know..." Aidan hesitated.  
  
"You've got to tell someone," Young-Snape rationalized. "What if you get in trouble and someone has to cast the spell but no one knows it, or maybe they need to find something you've hidden and no one knows how to break it except you, but you're unconscious and they're running out of time—"  
  
"Okay, I get it! The incantation..." His voice dropped to a whisper and both Snapes leaned in closer. "It's cacherio personem. Actually casting the spell is a bit more complicated than just waving your wand and saying the words, but I'll teach you how later."  
  
"How do you break the spell?"  
  
"The counter-spell doesn't break it, it just leads you to the source. That incantation is revelo personem, it's easy to do. Actually un-doing the spell is difficult, a bit like getting inside the object magically and unweaving the spell, in a sense. I'll show you that later, too..."  
  
Snape could no longer hear Aidan by that point. He had begun his retreat from the tree the moment he had heard the second incantation. By that point, memories of the first and only time he had tried the spell had floated up from the depths of his subconscious, and he wanted to use the information before he forgot it all. He also recalled that Aidan had later taught the spell to the uppermost members of the Order.  
  
Snape used his will power to pull himself out of the Pensieve and back under the scrubby tree by the work site.  
  
He jogged over to Christopher, who was explaining something or other to one of his team members. Snape waited until Chris had finished speaking before addressing him. "I think I know what we're dealing with here, but I need to check it out before I'm sure," he said, surprised at himself for automatically downplaying the situation. He knew that there was truly no question about the nature of the spell, but he would rather be quietly right than embarrassingly wrong.  
  
"That's wonderful! Absolutely great. We might have this over with by the end of the day," Chris said optimistically.  
  
"I'm going to take a broom and see where it leads me. Don't follow, I'll be back before sunset at the latest," Snape informed Chris, and he strode purposefully off to find his broomstick.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Snape flew about five miles into the invisible circle (following the point of his wand) before it became too dangerous to be seen on a flying broomstick. He landed, hid his broom under some bushes, and began to walk, still following his wand's directions. It led him about a mile away, straight towards a sunny, secluded cove on a lonely and empty beach. He became confused and even a little discouraged when his wand seemed to lead him into the ocean, but he realized that it was actually pointing at a cluster of rocks jutting strangely out of the sand.  
  
'Why would anyone want to conceal a load of rocks...?' he pondered, but stopped in his tracks when he noticed the back of a shiny black head just visible over the rocks. He crept forwardly slowly, the sound of his movements hidden by the crashing of the waves. The head belonged to a person, a teenaged girl, who was sitting a patch of dry sand and reading a very large and heavy-looking novel.  
  
Snape, suspecting that the girl was, in fact, his quarry, settled on the opposite side of the rocks, just to the right of her. He could not see her face, and the rocks prevented close observation, but he would be able to see if she left or moved at all.  
  
Some time later, when the angle of the sun was that of late afternoon and the sand and wind were starting to bother Snape, the black-haired girl looked up and sighed. She pushed herself up easily and dusted the clinging sand off her black sarong, then began to climb over and between the jagged edges of stone. She headed away from the ocean and towards a slim, black bicycle that rested against one of the smaller formations. Snape followed her movements closely, as did his wand, which was still functioning under the revealing spell.  
  
The girl took a blue canvas bag off the handlebars of the bike and draped it over her shoulder before dropping her massive book into it. She walked the bike to the sidewalk, Snape shadowing her several hundred feet behind. He cursed quietly when she mounted and rode away, too quick for him to follow.  
  
Snape, again at the mercy of his wand, started down the sidewalk behind the rapidly disappearing figure of the bicycle. Several pedestrians and many more vehicles passed him, which made his journey slightly more difficult because he had to be careful to keep his wand out of sight. The sidewalk ran parallel to the ocean, but Snape could no longer see the water because of the closely packed houses blocking the view. Soon, though, his wand told him to turn inland, and he found himself in a neighborhood of more, slightly nicer houses, separated by significantly larger yards.  
  
As he wound through the quiet residential area, he began to wonder exactly how he was going to explain this concealment charm to the girl. He could not break the charm without the girl's knowledge and consent, as the process involved magically entering her mind, but he could not simply knock on the door, rambling about magic spells, and expect to be welcomed.  
  
'Then again, she may actually be a witch,' Snape considered. 'That would certainly make this ordeal less complicated.' If that was the case, he could simply notify the girl that the charm was causing problems and she could take care of it herself. There would be no explaining of the magical world, no attempts to prove that magic is real, and no Obliviating afterwards.  
  
Snape fervently hoped that she was not actually a Muggle, but only a Muggle- born witch home from school for the summer. He knew, though, that it was unlikely, and that he would have to prepare for the worst.  
  
He was so caught up in his plans that he did not notice when he passed the girl's house, and he had to backtrack for a block when he noticed his wand pointing the opposite direction.  
  
The wand pointed to a modern, expensive-looking house situated on the corner of two intersecting streets. Snape approached the front door, climbed the few steps leading to it, and began to reach for the doorbell. He stopped though, when he heard angry voices floating out of the screen door.  
  
"You are grounded, young lady! Don't you dare touch that bike for another week, or it'll be longer than that!"  
  
"Fine! You know what? I don't care! I am sick and tired of your jumping to conclusions, so maybe this once I'll just stop trying to make you listen to me, and I'll stop trying to make you think rationally!"  
  
Snape heard stomping footsteps.  
  
"Get back down here! I'm not done with you!"  
  
A door slammed. Loud rock music began playing out of one of the upstairs windows.  
  
Snape decided that it would be as good a time as any to intrude, so he rang the doorbell. Several seconds later, a flustered, red-faced woman appeared in the doorway. She stopped in her tracks, apparently surprised at seeing a complete stranger standing on her front porch, but she recovered quickly and opened the door.  
  
"Can I help you sir?" the woman asked, sounding tired and wary. Her small frame sagged and she seemed older than she probably was.  
  
"My name is Severus Snape, from the Department of Investigation and Law Enforcement of the county," Severus introduced himself, smoothly beginning the conversation he had rehearsed in his mind. He even procured a fake but official-looking identity badge and showed it to the woman. "Can I come in?" he asked.  
  
"Oh, yes, of course," the woman said, suddenly looking nervous. She opened the door wider and Severus stepped in. She led him into the living room and begged, "Please sit down. Um...oh! I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Helena Castell."  
  
"It's a pleasure to meet you Mrs. Castell," Snape said politely, shaking the woman's tiny hand.  
  
"Call me Helena."  
  
"Well then, Helena, I need to speak with you about an incident that concerns your daughter."  
  
At that, her expression became exasperated and angry, but before she could open her mouth to say anything, Snape corrected her obvious train of thought. "Don't worry, she hasn't done anything wrong," he assured her.  
  
"Oh, well...um, is it very important?" she asked suddenly. "Because if it is, we should wait for my husband. He should be home any minute now."  
  
"Yes, it will be best to speak with both of you at once, and your daughter should be present as well," Severus replied.  
  
"Um, can I get you anything while you're waiting? A drink, maybe?"  
  
Snape really did not want anything to drink, but the woman looked so nervous and agitated, and Snape thought it would be best to give her something to do. "Some water would be fine," he said.  
  
She left the room quickly to fill his request, and as Snape waited patiently for her return, he heard the sound of a car rolling into the driveway.  
  
"That's my husband," said Helena, poking her head in the door. "Should I go call Sianna?"  
  
"Yes, please do," Snape replied, assuming that Sianna was the girl who he had been following.  
  
Just then, a door opened somewhere at the back of the house and Snape heard a man walk in.  
  
"Helena, Sianna! I'm home!" he yelled as he walked towards the stairs, briefcase in hand. He was halfway through the living room before he noticed another man sitting on his couch. "Well who do we have here?" 


	3. Unraveling the Mystery

A/N: Woohoo! Two chapters in one day! I'm on a roll. I've nearly worn myself out, so I don't expect to churn out another one until the weekend. You get to meet Sianna this chapter...she'll be dominating much of the plot line soon, so I hope you enjoy your first taste of her!  
  
Chapter Three: Undoing What Was Done  
  
"Severus Snape, Department of Investigation and Law Enforcement," he introduced himself, mimicking the earlier conversation with Helena.  
  
The man set down his briefcase and walked confidently to Snape, who stood up to grip his enormous, weathered hand.  
  
"John Castell. I'm assuming you've met my wife already. Where did she run off to?" he asked, moving into the hallway to peek up the stairs.  
  
"She went upstairs to find Sianna. There is an issue I need to sort out concerning all of you, and I felt it would be best to speak with the entire family at once," Snape assured him, remaining deliberately vague.  
  
"Well it's too bad that Elise is off at summer camp," John lamented. "She's our other daughter," he volunteered, although Snape had given no indication that he did not already know that. "Sianna is fifteen, Elise is seventeen. They get along well."  
  
Just then, Helena came back down the stairs with Sianna in tow. The girl looked over her mother's shoulder at Snape, clearly sizing him up. Snape only granted her a swift glance, but even in that short look he noticed the considerable beauty that had not been visible from a distance. Only a slightly over-sized nose marred her features.  
  
"Let's sit down," Helena suggested, once again becoming nervous at the thought of a "government official" visiting her home.  
  
Awkward silence reigned as the two parents arranged themselves on the couch and faced Snape, looking at him expectantly. Sianna plopped into a separate chair and glared her parents, remaining silent and uncaring. Then she shifted her stare to Snape.  
  
He took this as his cue to begin explaining. "I am here because of an incident concerning your daughter," he said to Helena and John, but looked directly at Sianna. She seemed very slightly intimidated, but she did not break eye contact. Good for her.  
  
"What have you done this time, Si?" John inquired in a vexed and resigned tone, turning to face his daughter.  
  
"He never said I did anything...it just concerns me," she shot back at her father, then raised her perfectly arched eyebrows at Snape.  
  
"That is correct. The incident in question was most certainly not...caused by you," Snape confirmed.  
  
"So what the hell is this 'incident,' then?" John asked, easily getting impatient with Snape's evasion.  
  
Snape took a deep breath, steeling himself for the answers, then asked, "Do you believe in magic?"  
  
Two skeptical "of-course-nots" came from the parents. I suppose they're Muggles then, Snape thought sarcastically to himself. This won't be fun. He turned to gaze directly into Sianna's eyes, waiting for an answer. A moment of tension passed before she spat out a defiant "yes." This both pleased and annoyed Snape, since he couldn't be sure whether or not she had said that just to disagree with her parents.  
  
"Well...you will be surprised to know that Miss Castell is the only one here with the right idea," he said seriously.  
  
Sianna could clearly be heard to mutter, "Here we go," before John found his voice.  
  
"That's—that's ridiculous! Preposterous! This is outrageous, what are you really here for?" he sputtered, nearly falling off the edge of his seat in disbelief and anger.  
  
Snape sighed. "What do you want me to do to prove it? Magic is real, and it has everything to do with your daughter," he interrupted quickly, trying to get it all out before John began yelling again.  
  
He was just barely fast enough; the shouting began as soon as the last word left his mouth. Helena began speaking quite forcefully about laws of nature, and John had stood up and begun pacing, yelling obscenities about "wackos and their radical beliefs." Then, Sianna took her turn.  
  
"If you two would just can it for a whole two seconds and let the poor guy speak, he would clear this thing up! He's obviously not going to leave just because you yell some curse words and physics theories at him."  
  
The yelling paused to make room for the daggers that the two adults were now shooting at their daughter. Snape broke the angry silence.  
  
"Let me reiterate myself: I can prove it. Anything you want me to do, I can make happen. Go ahead, give me a test, anything you can think of," he said, purposely making it a challenge in order to get John's attention. He seemed like a territorial kind of man.  
  
It worked. John immediately shoved a beautiful glass vase off the stand behind him. "Fix it," he demanded.  
  
"Reparo," Snape said almost lazily, aiming his wand at the shattered glass. The vase, as expected, pulled seamlessly back together as if the pieces were magnetically attracted to each other. Helena dashed over and inspected it, of course finding no fault.  
  
"What did you do?" she asked, obviously quite amazed.  
  
"Magic," Snape replied smugly, glad that he was making some sort of progress. He then proceeded to levitate the vase back to its original location on the stand. The three other occupants of the room stared in awe. Sianna was the first to recover, asking him if he could disappear.  
  
He stood compliantly and apparated into the kitchen, annoyed but determined to do whatever it took to get these people to listen. He sauntered back into the living room and sat back down.  
  
"Cool," was the only thing that came out of Sianna's mouth.  
  
However, she did not suffer from speechlessness for long, and she soon began harassing Snape for more details about the mysterious "incident."  
  
Snape bid the two parents to sit back down, and they followed his directions automatically, having not yet recovered from the shock of seeing a person apparate. He began to patiently explain the secret wizarding world to them, or really to Sianna, as she was the only one who seemed to be taking in any of it. He did not go in depth, but briefly described the forms of magic, along with the government and culture of wizards. Sianna looked amazed and excited by the entire concept, but her parents remained dumb with shock.  
  
When he mentioned that Muggle-born witches and wizards were usually invited to a school of magic at ten or eleven years old, Sianna's face fell, and she said rhetorically, "I suppose there's no chance of that being me, then."  
  
Snape pitied her for a moment, but hurried on with the explanation. He finally got to the point, several minutes later.  
  
"Miss Castell, there has been a spell placed on you. It prevents anyone from finding or contacting you by magical means. I have to ask you, is there anyone you know that you would suspect of using magic?" asked Snape, hoping that the girl could lead him to the castor of the spell. He still could not fathom how a secret spell created in England more than fifteen years ago would end up in Southern California.  
  
Sianna thought for a minute, but eventually shook her head in the negative.  
  
"I was afraid of that. Well, I suppose there is nothing we can do but take the spell out of you," Snape said. "I am going to have to explore your mind with my magic, and I need you to relax as much as possible, and not fight me."  
  
"Now wait just a second there, buddy. If you think I'm gonna let you pull this stunt on my little girl, you've got another thing comin'," warned John, seemingly out of his trance. "For all we know, you could be some kind of assassin or something—"  
  
"Sir, you trusted me once today with that vase. You are going to have to trust me again. Believe me, if I had any intention whatsoever of killing any of you, I would have done it by now." That quieted him.  
  
He turned to Sianna once again. "Are you ready?" he asked. She nodded nervously. "Good. You may feel a tingle, but it won't hurt. It will help if you close your eyes."  
  
Sianna's eyelids fell. Snape placed the tip of his wand at her temple, shut his own eyes, and dove into Sianna with his magic. He traced the endless veins of magic already present to a circular center point that glowed like a beacon in this altered perspective. To him, the system looked like a plant bulb that, over the years, had sent out little exploratory roots in order to become more stable in its surroundings. This spell has been here for years, maybe since she was born, Snape thought, amazed. He wielded his own magic, carefully weeding out the little strands of light that had become a natural part of Sianna. Only when he was certain that he had eradicated all traces of the brilliant magic did he withdraw. The concealment spell, gathered by his own power, followed him out, but something made him pause.  
  
There was more magic here, but this was a completely separate spell. Somebody really doesn't want this girl found...Snape mused, opting to pull out the first spell and then go back to examine the other.  
  
He blinked rapidly as he his consciousness re-entered his own body. He looked down at Sianna, who was doing the same.  
  
"Wow," she said slowly. "That was...weird. Like you were kneading my brain."  
  
"I was, essentially."  
  
"Is that it?"  
  
"I thought it would be, but I've discovered something new. I'm going to have to do that again. Are you ready?" he asked, eager to find the source of the other spell.  
  
"Yeah, just...gimme a second. I'm kinda dizzy."  
  
He waited a minute as Sianna regained her balance. "I'm ready," she told him, and the process began again.  
  
Snape delved deeper into Sianna's mind, easily locating the second spell. It looked very different from the concealment charm, yet was somehow exactly the same thing. The substance appeared, just as the other spell had, as brilliant, blinding light that seemed to mold itself to its environment. Yet this spell did not at all resemble the root-and-bulb structure of the first; in fact, it seemed to surround and cling to something else. Snape thought later that it was a bit like the skin on an orange.  
  
He used his own power to peel away the multiple layers of liquefied light, and he was shocked at what he found at the center.  
  
A vast, untapped reservoir of magic filled his enhanced vision, and he realized that what he has just peeled away had been a powerfully blocking spell—one that would have trapped this girl's magic forever had he not stumbled across it. He unwrapped the remainder of the block and pulled it out of Sianna, staggering a bit when he slammed back into his body. The huge amount of power that he had rooted out had quite literally shoved him into his physical form before it dispersed.  
  
Well, this news will make Miss Castell happy, if not her parents, Snape thought when he tried to find a way to tell them of the girl's magic.  
  
"Well?" prompted Sianna, who was curious as to the cause of the expression on Snape's face. "What did you find?"  
  
"What did I find..." Snape mumbled quietly at no one, still a bit shocked at the implications of the second spell. "I found an extraordinarily powerful blocking spell."  
  
A pregnant silence filled the room. "A blocking spell," Sianna repeated, as if it would help her understand. "Blocking what?"  
  
Snape turned and caught Sianna's eye. "You're a witch, Sianna. You have magic," he said in that piercing almost-whisper that could carry to every corner of the dungeons if he wished.  
  
She stood there a moment, dumbfounded. Then the statement appeared to get through to her, and she broke out into a huge grin. Her parents would later claim that it was the widest smile they had ever seen on her face.  
  
"What? That's not possible, we would have known—"Helena said, still as shocked as Sianna had been at first.  
  
"Yes, mom, it is possible," Sianna cut her off, tired of listening to her parents' closed-minded reasoning.  
  
"Once again, Helena, your daughter is right. You couldn't have known, Sianna didn't even know, because of this blocking spell. It is quite possibly the most powerful one I have ever seen, and I must tell you, that is saying a lot," Snape told them quietly. "It completely blotted out all of her magic. There were no leaks, holes, or weak spots."  
  
He then noticed that John had been quiet for quite some time. Helena, following the direction of Snape's look, and she prodded gently, "Don't you have anything to say about this, John?" He had been staring into the nothingness before him, but when his wife addressed him, he looked up.  
  
His eyes darted to first to Helena, then to his daughter, and finally landed on Snape. "Are you going to take her away from us?"  
  
Snape looked down at the strong man, who had suddenly turned weak and pitiful at the thought of losing his child. 'Is this what having children does to people?' he asked himself. 'Thank Merlin I never stayed in a relationship long enough for that.'  
  
"Sianna will have to go to school. There is no other option, her powers will wreak havoc if she does not learn to control them. But am I going to take her away? Not without permission from all parties involved," he told John, trying to reassure him without hiding the truth. "Your daughter is a rare and extremely intriguing case. I am quite sure that Hogwarts would love to have her, but if you prefer that she attend an American school, we will understand. It's your choice, really."  
  
Seeing that the family needed some discussion time, he told them that he would be back in two hours. At that, he apparated to the bush where he had left his broom, then disappeared again and reappeared back at the worksite.  
  
Upon his arrival, the entire investigation team, who had been lounging under the only shade available, got up and rushed over to him. They all started talking at once, but Christopher's question overrode the voices of the others.  
  
"What happened?" he asked plaintively. "We were working until about half an hour ago, then all the spells just started working again. Did you find the source?"  
  
Snape explained that he had found the source about six miles into the center of the circle, but he left out exactly whom it had been. Instead, he told the team that some witch living in the area had used the charm on her friend as a joke. Snape didn't really know why he lied about his discovery, but he decided later that it was probably best if the American Ministry didn't think he was stealing a student from them.  
  
When asked how he knew what the spell was, Snape explained it away as a very old charm that had been invented thousands of years ago but had never been considered useful because it allowed the object in question to be found by non-magical means. (This was partially true—it had been the reason that no one who knew the spell had ever used it, and the reason it had fallen into obscurity.)  
  
So, mission completed, Christopher, Judy, Snape and the rest of team apparated back to the Ministry building, where they dispersed. Christopher and his team went home, and Judy walked Snape back to his rooms in the guest wing.  
  
"You'll leave tonight, then?" she enquired.  
  
"Yes. I will pack now and leave as soon as possible."  
  
"What, you don't like America?" she asked sarcastically.  
  
"As a matter of fact, I really don't." Snape answered the sarcastic question bitingly, letting his exhaustion and stress catch up with him.  
  
"Oh. Well, it was...it was nice meeting you," she said awkwardly.  
  
"The pleasure is all mine," Snape replied, although it couldn't have been further from the truth. He nodded to her and entered his rooms before she could say anything else.  
  
Snape took very little time to pack because he had hardly brought anything in the first place. He spent the remainder of his two-hour wait drafting a letter to Dumbledore explaining the situation. He told of the spell that he had forgotten about, the girl upon whom it had been cast, and what he had discovered when he broke the spell. The letter took a surprisingly long time to compose, and by the time Snape had finished it, the two hours were almost up. He was about to send it off when he realized that not only did he have no owl to send it with, but also that he would be back at Hogwarts days before the owl would have completed its trans-Atlantic journey.  
  
So, Snape was very irritated by the time he had apparated back into the Castells' kitchen. He entered the living room precisely on time, and found the three Castells in the midst of a heated discussion. It was a moment before any of them noticed Snape's presence, but when Sianna looked up and fell quiet, the others followed her gaze and did the same.  
  
"Have you come to a decision?" he asked, trying to keep the impatience to a minimum.  
  
Sianna's face turned thoughtful for a split second, and then she invited, "Perhaps you could help me make my point here. These two seem to have closed their ears temporarily and are not listening to a thing I've been telling them."  
  
Severus, foreseeing an argument, sat down with a sigh. "Alright...what do you want and what do they want?" he asked bluntly.  
  
It seemed that the parents were fulfilling their roles as the protectors, and the adventurous daughter wanted them to let go of her leash. Helena and John, as expected, wanted Sianna as close to home as possible. Sianna, on the other hand, was all for going to England for her magical education. Snape also wanted Sianna to come to Hogwarts, if only because she struck his curiosity, and although he tried to present both sides of the argument equally, he could not help but play down the disadvantages of going to Hogwarts.  
  
"The truth is, almost every wizarding school is a boarding school, and all those that are not are even farther away than Great Britain, so they will do you no good. Regardless of whether Sianna lives ten miles away or ten thousand, you will not be seeing her during the academic year," Snape explained to them. It was quite true. The only wizard day schools that he knew of were in India and Australia.  
  
"See, there's no reason why I shouldn't go to England, I won't be around either way," Sianna summed up smugly.  
  
"I'm not finished," Snape told them. "There is one very important thing I have yet to mention."  
  
He took a deep breath and begged his memories to leave him alone for the time being. Then, he began, "There was a war in the wizarding community from the seventies until the mid-eighties, and England was a very dangerous place during that time. That war was very often equated with your Second World War, although on a far smaller scale. A man named Voldemort assimilated a group of followers that he called Death Eaters. His goal was to rid the wizarding world of "impure" wizards, those who had Muggle blood. He used any means to achieve this, and he very nearly won. The war only ended when he suddenly disappeared.  
  
The room was dead silent.  
  
A moment later, Sianna spoke up. "What does this have to do with my decision, if that all ended fifteen-odd years ago?"  
  
"It matters now because Lord Voldemort never died, he just vanished. We know now that a failed curse had robbed him of his body and powers, but that he was still alive during the fourteen short years of peace. It matters because he was reborn last month, and he is alive once again."  
  
When again, no one spoke, Snape took the opportunity to deliver the better news. "I say he is alive only because we have a semi-reliable witness of his rebirthing ceremony. He has actually been extremely quiet these past few weeks. So quiet that the British Ministry of Magic refuses to believe that he has returned."  
  
"I don't care how goddamn quiet the bastard is, I don't want my baby in that kind of danger," John asserted, finally finding the words for his thoughts.  
  
Severus sighed, tired of explaining, but pressed on to tell the whole story. "Miss Castell would be in no grave danger at Hogwarts. Much of England is considered dangerous for a Muggle-born, but Hogwarts is by far the safest place in the whole of the magical community, worldwide."  
  
"What makes you think this Hogwarts is so safe, hm?" John demanded skeptically.  
  
"Albus Dumbledore, who is possibly the wisest and most powerful wizard alive, is headmaster there. As he is the only man Lord Voldemort has ever feared, I think that Miss Castell would be in better hands there than anywhere else," Snape replied confidently.  
  
The room was quiet for another minute.  
  
Snape again took advantage of the silence. "The education she would get there, I can tell you now, would be far superior to any she would find here," he began. "I myself am a professor at Hogwarts, and my colleagues are some of the best and most experienced of their fields. Your daughter has missed more than half of her school years already, and she will need the best instructors if she wants to learn seven years of magic in three years."  
  
Sianna looked hopeful as she let her parents consider the information in silence.  
  
"Honey?" Helena finally spoke up, addressing John. "I think Sianna should go to England," she said quietly.  
  
"Are you insane? She could be killed there!" yelled John.  
  
"Haven't you been listening to anything he's said, Dad?" Sianna burst out incredulously, unable to stay silent any longer. "There is almost no chance of me coming to harm at school, and since I'm obviously way behind with my magical training I'll need the best teachers I can get. The pros outweigh the cons here," Sianna said, fairly persuasively.  
  
"What she really means," Helena interpreted laughingly, "is 'two against one: I win, you lose!'"  
  
"Mom..." Sianna scolded, knowing full well that it was true. "So I can go?" she asked hopefully.  
  
John took a deep breath and sighed into his hands. "Alright, I give up. You can go."  
  
This earned him enormous bear hug from his daughter and wife. Having finally resolved the situation and finding himself not a little tired from the day's events, Snape interrupted the group hug.  
  
"Today is Monday. I will back here at ten on Saturday morning to take you to Hogwarts," he informed Sianna.  
  
"What? I'm leaving so soon?"  
  
"Once again, you have missed four years of schooling, Miss Castell. The sooner you begin your tutoring, the sooner you will be caught up with your class," and with that, Snape gathered his things and apparated home. 


	4. Parting Words

Chapter Four: Parting Words and Introductions  
  
Sianna hated good-byes. The words themselves were awkward, leaving her mouth feeling empty and her ears unsatisfied, and yet there was invariably a lack of alternative expressions when the time to say the words arrived. When the moment came down to it, she could never remember any of the multiple parting conversations she had rehearsed beforehand and was always stuck with the same inadequate phrase.  
  
In any less extreme case, Sianna would have left without saying anything at all to her friends, but she knew that they would never forgive her for disappearing for an entire year without a moment's notice. She was not really close to anyone, so she just called one or two friends and broke the news, then asked them to relay it to the rest of their little group.  
  
Good-bye parties were definitely something to avoid, but Sianna knew she didn't need to worry about anyone trying to throw one for her. The people she hung out with were not exactly the type that would do the sort of thing, even if she had been close to them.  
  
Sianna's parents had nullified the weeklong grounding that she had been sentenced to, which was thoughtful of them, so Sianna tried to be nice and follow the rules during her last four days at home. This made for a fairly dull two days, until her older sister, Elise, came home and she had someone to talk to. Sianna spent the last forty-eight hours playing tennis and talking with her sibling, and on Friday night she got permission to go to the beach with her and watch the sunset over the pacific for the last time.  
  
The great red circle lowering into the sea had been a beautiful sight, but it left Sianna in an annoyingly pensive and melancholic state. Later, as she lay in bed fidgeting in the hot darkness and waiting for sleep to find her, the little voice that had first whispered of adventure crawled into a deep cave and could not be coaxed back out. It was only then that Sianna began to consider the negative side of running off to a foreign country by herself.  
  
She flopped onto her stomach and sighed. "Shy" was not a word generally used to describe Sianna, but she had always felt uncomfortable meeting strangers, and she was suddenly very glad that there would be no students at Hogwarts when she arrived. Having the whole summer to get used to the culture and environment would definitely help her lose the anxiety that came with friendlessness.  
  
I really want to go, I do, Sianna repeated to herself, refusing to let herself oscillate over her decision. A little loneliness never killed anyone, and it's not like it'll be forever.  
  
As she sweated and tangled herself in the sheets, years-old memories of happy days with her family kept sleep away. Picnics on the beach and vacations floated by one after the other, and Sianna imagined what life would be like without parents and siblings. My friends will be like my family, Sianna assured herself, not as confidently as she would have liked. I'm not suddenly turning into and orphan just because my family is on the other side of the planet. They'll still be here when I get back.  
  
Several hours of worrying later, as Sianna watched the moon rise in her window, her reckless and adventurous side crawled back out, and she knew that she was more than ready for something exciting, a change that would keep her on her toes. Sianna comforted her sentimental and clingy side with the thought that it would only be few years, and she could always visit. At that moment though, all Sianna could think was that fifteen years of the same certainly warranted a change. She began to relax into her pillow.  
  
Her confidence in her decision was furthered when she remembered that strange, compelling feeling that had plagued her happiness as long as she could remember. It would creep up on her during one of her entirely unchallenging days at school, or while she sat outside at lunch, observing those students who she knew, yet didn't know. She would look out at the people around her and wonder why she felt so separated from them, contemplating the impalpable distance between her and them. Even when she was alone, sitting in her room reading or playing her guitar on the beach, she felt the shadow upon her and knew she didn't belong.  
  
That shadow had come frequently, yet was so erratic and fleeting that for her entire life, Sianna had managed to disregard it as her own imagined folly. Never had she dreamed that it was not unfounded, that there was reason behind her madness, that her creativity had not simply run into a world free of logic and dragged her along. She had been wrong all this time—there was a reason, if not an entirely logical or scientific one, that she felt like she was supposed to be somewhere else.  
  
The next morning at precisely ten o'clock, Sianna would be whisked away to that other place, the "somewhere else" where she was meant to be all along. She fell into a calm, still slumber.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
Eight in the morning was far too early to be awake, especially during summer vacation, but Sianna could not bring herself to fall back asleep two hours before leaving her stable life for the blank page that awaited her at Hogwarts. She tiredly swung her semi-rejuvenated body over the edge of the low bed, overestimated, and landed on the unforgiving hardwood floor with a resounding thud.  
  
Cursing, she struggled to her feet and jammed her toes into the flimsy slippers she had worn since her feet had ceased to grow. The kitchen called to her stomach, which drove her to descend the stairs and rummage through the refrigerator for something edible.  
  
Sianna downed a cold glass of orange juice and retrieved a banana, which she toted back up the stairs. On her way up, she peeked into the rooms of her parents, who were still abed, and her sister Elise, who had returned from camp two days before and was also sleeping soundly.  
  
Sianna knew that everything she could possibly need at Hogwarts that she could bring from home was safely packed away in the trunk that sat beside her closet, but she checked it again just to calm her nerves. As she rummaged through the stacks of clothing and books, she recognized the familiar anxiousness that she felt whenever she prepared to go somewhere by herself. Before leaving, Sianna was always nervous and fidgety, even to the point of nausea. But she knew that the moment the house disappeared, any sign of nerves or sickness would vanish entirely.  
  
She had never entirely understood this, but had always attributed it to her fear and hatred of saying good-bye.  
  
Finished with her final bag-check, she attempted to take her mind off the impending departure by uncasing and tuning her acoustic guitar. She idly strummed a few chords, but felt lonely without her guitar-buddies, as she liked to refer to them. Restlessness returned quickly with the lack of distraction, so Sianna wandered into the bathroom to begin her usual morning routine.  
  
A look at herself in the mirror caught her eye, though, and made the useless and annoying self-analysis begin once again. She carefully studied her features, the same ones she had worn and looked at every day. She did not really resemble her parents, but several of her traits were obviously inherited.  
  
Thinking about her parents saddened her. Since seventh grade, she had grown steadily further from them, and she no longer felt even a little of the bonds they had shared when Sianna was younger. Middle school had been hard for Sianna, and as her interests diverged from those of her old friends, she fell into a habit of solidarity. She became introverted, cynical, and sarcastic, but not nearly to the degree that she was now.  
  
School had gradually ceased to be exciting or challenging, even in the most advanced classes, and as she moved into high school, Sianna's boredom drove her to more exciting, less reputable pastimes. As her parents were forced to act as the disciplinarians more often, Sianna resented them more, and broke more rules to spite them. It turned into a vicious cycle that had never been righted.  
  
Now, though, regret filled Sianna, and she wished she had been able to swallow her pride sooner.  
  
The sounds of her family stirring jerked Sianna out of her reverie, and she quickly finished applying her extremely sparse make-up. After dressing in a worn pair of black cargo pants and a plain black tank, she headed to the kitchen for the second time that morning.  
  
Her family broke off their conversation as she entered, and Helena greeted her daughter cheerfully, "Hey honey. How long have you been up?"  
  
"I haven't seen you in clothes this early since school ended," Elise joked.  
  
"Yeah, it's practically against the laws of summer vacation to get out of your pajamas before eleven, right?" Sianna joked back. "I woke up at eight. I couldn't fall back asleep," she explained.  
  
"Did you eat already?" Sianna's father asked.  
  
"A bit. I'm not really hungry."  
  
"Well, I made eggs if you want them."  
  
"No, thanks."  
  
Sianna sat down at the oval kitchen table and shared one last morning with the people she had lived with all her life. They spoke of the news, plans for the week, the weather, and other idle but comforting subjects. Sianna wondered what breakfasts at Hogwarts would be like.  
  
They had been chatting for quite a while when Sianna checked the clock on the wall. It told her that in five minutes it would be ten, the time that Professor Snape was supposed to come to take her to Hogwarts. Those strange nerves flared at the thought that this was the last five minutes she would spend here for a year, that in five minutes she would have to leave for a completely new home. She didn't say anything about the time to her family.  
  
Sure enough, three hundred dragging seconds later there was a small pop and Snape appeared just outside the kitchen door and knocked. Unfortunately, Elise had been looking right out the window in the door at that moment, and she nearly fell out of her chair with shock. They had, of course, related the story of the previous Monday night to her many times, but although some of Sianna's accidental magic had proven the verity of the tale, she was still surprised to find that her family had not exaggerated any of the details.  
  
Sianna's parents froze, knowing that the time had come, and Sianna was left to answer the door herself.  
  
"Uh, hello," Sianna said nervously to the imposing man on her doorstep.  
  
"Good morning, Miss Castell," Snape greeted formally as he stepped through the open door.  
  
Sianna turned to see that her parents her parents had stood to shake hands with Snape.  
  
"I'll go get my stuff," Sianna offered, and she was halfway up the stairs before anyone could protest. She lugged her laden trunk from her room to the top of the stairs, where she saw her father waiting to take it down stairs. "One sec, I need to get my guitar," she told him, disappearing back into her room.  
  
When she returned to the kitchen, she set the guitar on the tile floor and turned to face her family, who stood staring at her, apparently wondering exactly what to do.  
  
Helena's eyes watered, and she rushed up and enfolded her daughter in a suffocating hug. She mumbled incoherently about "my baby going away to the big world" and sniffed into Sianna's shoulder. Helena eventually managed to pry herself off her daughter, only to be replaced by her husband.  
  
Elise was next, giving her little sister a short, tight embrace before facing her and warning solemnly, "Don't do anything I would do because you'll probably just get detention for it, and don't screw up and get sent home because then I'll kill you, and make lots of friends so that so that I don't have to read any lonely, whiny letters...oh yeah, and don't date more than five guys at once, believe me, it never works."  
  
At this, Sianna let out a nervous chuckle and was even more amused to see that Snape was staring strangely at Elise, presumably because of her rather unexpected parting speech. He stood absolutely still with a sneer frozen on his face, but when he saw that Sianna had noticed him, he said, "Are you ready, then?"  
  
"Where's my trunk?" Sianna asked confusedly, not seeing it anywhere.  
  
"I shrank it and put it in my pocket," he said quite seriously, producing the miniature version in his hand, then slipping it back into his robes. "Are you ready to leave?" he repeated.  
  
Sianna nodded and gave her parents one last hug before approaching Snape, who pulled another object out of his pocket. It was a feather quill that had been turned into a Portkey, and Snape explained how it would transport them directly to Hogwarts.  
  
"It has been programmed to take us there when you touch it. Just one finger is enough," Snape instructed.  
  
Sianna took a last look at her teary-eyed family and said weakly, "See you next summer." She touched the quill, and both she and the professor were gone.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
The moment her finger made contact with the feather, the world began to spin and colors blurred into a hazy tie-dye. She felt a tug behind her belly button that made her spin along with her surroundings. Then the feeling suddenly stopped, and she was left staring dizzily at the road under her feet, fighting to stay upright.  
  
'Well now I know what somebody on acid means when they say "pretty colors,"' Sianna said sarcastically to herself, thinking correctly that Snape would probably not appreciate the observation.  
  
When she finally got her senses under control, she looked up at the professor, who gazed smugly down at her. "You'll get used to it," he said, silently laughing scornfully at her. Sianna ignored him.  
  
Then she noticed the massive stone castle that lay through the gates in front of her, and froze in awe at the sheer size of it.  
  
"Shall we proceed?" Snape asked rhetorically. He marched ahead, and she trotted to catch up with the professor.  
  
Sianna had trouble keeping her eyes ahead of her as she crossed the expansive grounds to the two-story front entryway. The path skirted the edges of a clearly unpolluted lake and led her past a series of enormous greenhouses and a small hut that was scaled for a very large person. 'And they say that America is the land of the huge,' Sianna mused, noting the irony of the scenery.  
  
The two climbed the stone steps leading to a wooden door the height of a house, and with surprisingly little effort, Snape let them in.  
  
Sianna wondered again at the size of everything as she stared up at the immensely high ceiling. "How many students did you say come here?" she asked Snape, amazed.  
  
"I didn't. Currently about three hundred are enrolled, possibly a few more," Snape replied.  
  
"All this for just three hundred kids? My old school was about the size of your front yard and there were twelve hundred of us."  
  
Snape make no remark at that. He led Sianna toward the staircases, and when the girl heard a low rumble, she looked up and gasped. "Why are they moving?" she asked, staring up at the mobile staircases.  
  
"Because they like to and they can. You should also beware of trick steps and such, and some of the stairways tend to disappear on certain days," he warned, sounding like her was hoping to scare the girl.  
  
He was disappointed when all that came out of her mouth was an awed, "Cool."  
  
Snape headed for the headmaster's office, and Sianna followed wordlessly. When he reached the familiar gargoyle, he spat, "Ton-Tongue Toffees" and watched it move aside to reveal another staircase. Sianna followed him up the winding steps to another door, where Snape stopped and knocked.  
  
"Ah, here they are. Come in, come in," she heard from the other side. They entered, and Sianna was taken aback to find a small array of adults, probably faculty, seated and facing the door expectantly. She hoped that they weren't all there just to talk to her, but considering the circumstance, she knew that they probably were.  
  
Snape took a seat among his colleagues, leaving Sianna standing awkwardly before them. "Uh, hello," she said with a barely perceivable and slightly nervous smile.  
  
Dumbledore noticed her discomfort and approached her, saying amiably, "It's wonderful to finally meet you, Sianna Castell. I am Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts," he introduced.  
  
Sianna shook his hand and could see that the old man was surprised at her firm grip. She had learned years ago that a firm grip tended to give the impression that she was confident and mature. "It's nice to meet you, sir," she said politely.  
  
Dumbledore led to a seat around the table (thankfully a solitary chair and not a space on the couch), then began to name the others in the room. Sianna greeted them all with a small nod. Along with Professor Snape, who she already knew, there were Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, and Lupin. After the necessary introductions, Sianna sat in the only remaining chair, which happened to be a sanguine, over-stuffed armchair with wooden legs. She sank into it rather farther than she would have liked.  
  
"Well, Miss Castell, as you can see, this is really a very interesting situation," Dumbledore began, opting to get straight down to business. "Nothing of the sort has ever occurred before, and while we have had transfer students and the like, none of them have ever had so much catching up to do. You realize of course, that we brought you here so early because you have missed four years of school already, and it would be in your best interests to begin your studies as soon as possible."  
  
"Yes, sir. Professor Snape mentioned that several times," Sianna said when it seemed that he required a response. Dumbledore seemed amused by her statement.  
  
Professor McGonagall then spoke up. "For the summer," she told Sianna, "we have devised a plan so that you will spend a certain amount of time each week on all of your major classes. You will not take any of the extra classes that students your age normally take, only because you will progress faster without the extra work."  
  
"Um, what exactly are these major classes?" Sianna asked, genuinely curious. "I'm guessing you don't teach algebra and English here."  
  
At Sianna's inquiry, Dumbledore suggested that the teachers each briefly explain their own subject.  
  
Professor McGonagall began, "I teach Transfiguration, the art of changing objects into other objects. It gets much more complicated than that, but you understand the general idea."  
  
Her short speech was followed by Professor Flitwick's explanation of Charms. Sianna was particularly intrigued by Snape's Potions class, and was also interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts, which Professor Lupin taught. As she listened to Professor Lupin speaking, she thought of the war that had just begun again and hoped that she would excel in that class. Herbology sounded rather boring to Sianna, as she had never been fond of gardening, but she decided that Professor Sprout was nice enough to make up for it.  
  
When the teachers finished answering Sianna's question, Dumbledore began again, "We really have not decided how to continue your education when the other students return, as the teachers will be busy with class and for the most part unable to tutor you. But that is not entirely relevant yet," he said, brushing past the subject.  
  
"I am curious, though," Professor Sprout interjected, "about how quickly you will progress. What if we house you with students your own age, but you do not graduate with them because you are not finished? Then you would be all by yourself, poor dear," she said pityingly.  
  
Sianna was amused that this professor cared so much about her social happiness. She assured her, "I'm a fast learner, I doubt it will be a problem."  
  
Before any of the teachers could reply to that, Dumbledore said excitedly, "Oh, that reminds me, I am very curious about Muggle schools. Would you care to tell us about them?" he asked.  
  
Sianna explained that Muggles were schooled far longer than wizards were, and the teachers were surprised to learn that she had just completed her tenth year at school, not her fourth. She refrained from sharing anything about her actual school record other than her grades, which were impeccable. Despite the fact that she had rarely studied, she had remained at the top of her class throughout her schooling. It had always been her saving grace: no matter how much she misbehaved, her parents could never use falling grades as an excuse to punish her.  
  
"That is just fascinating. I've always wanted to study Muggles, but I've just never has the—"Dumbledore started, but Professor Snape cleared his throat suggestively, and he returned to the topic. "Well then, for the summer, we have prepared a room in the guest wing for you. The house dormitories are much too spacious for just one girl—"  
  
"Sorry, you said house dormitories? What exactly do you mean by "house?'"  
  
That prompted a short relation of the founding of Hogwarts, followed by an explanation of the four houses and their heads. "There is a magical hat, the Sorting Hat, that each new student wears for a moment when they first arrive, and it tells them which house they would fit in best according to their personalities," Professor McGonagall told Sianna. "I suppose we should Sort you now, shouldn't we?"  
  
"Actually," Sianna interjected before they could do anything further, "I would rather wait a bit. Is that okay?"  
  
"I suppose that would be fine," McGonagall admitted. "I don't think it will make much of a difference..."  
  
"I dunno. It's a gut feeling, I guess. Maybe I'd just rather keep the suspense on a bit longer," she joked, also not quite sure about her reasoning behind the request.  
  
There was a pause that signaled a lack of further topics to discuss, then professor Lupin said, "If that's all, I'd like to get down to dinner soon—"  
  
"That's right, it's dinnertime here, isn't it? Strange," Sianna interrupted, not noticing her tactlessness. "Well, I second the motion. I haven't eaten since...well not that long ago, but still, I'm a growing girl, I get hungry easily."  
  
The professors laughed as they rose from their seats, Sianna's uninhibited comment having effectively ended the meeting. They all filed out of the headmaster's office and trekked to the dining hall together. 


	5. Some Who Wander Are Lost

A/N: I'm sorry this chapter has taken so long to get posted compared to the others. I completely redid the first few chapters of the story before writing this, and there is quite a bit of new content, so if you started this story before May 2004, you should reread the first four chapters. I don't think it matters much, as I currently don't have any readers, but I'm just telling you people in case there's someone who has been reading and not reviewing. Well, here's the next installment, enjoy!  
  
Chapter Five: Some Who Wander Are Lost  
  
The six professors and Sianna sat at a modified staff table, a smaller one whose seats surrounded it instead of facing only the house tables. Professor Dumbledore sat on Sianna's right, Lupin on her left, and Snape was directly across the table. Sianna, just like all the other Muggle-born students that had ever come to Hogwarts, was astonished when the food appeared magically in the middle of the table. She recovered from the shock and began to eat, quietly listening to the professors, who spoke mostly of the news.  
  
"Yesterday's meeting did not go well at all," Dumbledore reported. "Fudge is as stubborn as ever."  
  
"That is to be expected for now," Snape pointed out. "He is right in that we have no concrete proof—"  
  
At this, McGonagall sputtered and said, "You aren't _seriously _defending his behavior! He isn't much of a Minister of Magic if he denies the danger in order to save his...pride and his precious office."  
  
"Yes, well, we already knew that, didn't we?" Snape retorted. "But if I were in his position, I'm not sure I would trust Potter either."  
  
"You've always been biased against the boy just because of his father—"  
  
"And with good reason! The boy has no respect, he gets away with murder at this school because you let him!" It was becoming apparent to Sianna that these two professors did not get along.  
  
"Please, you two," Flitwick interrupted. "If I'm not mistaken, we've had this discussion before...more than once." Sianna snickered at that.  
  
"Does something amuse you?" Snape shot.  
  
"No, sir," she said, trying to hold in her laughter. She looked down and breathed deeply, but a moment later she snorted again, this time at her plate. This caused the headmaster to start laughing, then Lupin and Sprout, and finally Professor Flitwick joined. Only the two arguing professors remained unmoved, glancing at each other as if they suspected a conspiracy.  
  
"Oh, I do believe that I neglected to mention something during our little meeting, Miss Castell," Dumbledore said suddenly after the laughter died down.  
  
Sianna swallowed her mouthful of food and asked, "What's that, sir?"  
  
"Well, you don't currently have the materials needed to begin your schooling, do you?" he didn't seem to want an answer, so Sianna just looked at him. He continued, "Normally I'd have Professor Hagrid, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, take you to get your things, but he is not available right now. I was thinking perhaps Professor Snape would take you to Diagon Alley tomorrow to buy your books and such," Dumbledore suggested.  
  
Sianna cringed inwardly as she heard Snape exhale with exasperation, and she decided to do a small favor for him. So, before he could protest the suggestion and offend her, Sianna did it for him.  
  
"Actually, Headmaster, Professor Snape was just telling me earlier how much work he had to do. Maybe someone else isn't as busy?" She glanced at Snape with a completely blank expression. He looked slightly amused, but not exactly grateful.  
  
"Oh really? I wasn't aware..." Dumbledore said, immediately spotting what Sianna was trying to do. He knew for a fact that Snape had reached a low point in his workload. "In that case, do any of you want to take Miss Castell?" he asked, addressing all the occupants of the table.  
  
There was a moments pause before Professor Lupin volunteered, "I could." Sianna smiled at him. "I need to get a few things myself, actually," he admitted.  
  
Dumbledore looked at Sianna questioningly, silently asking for her acquiescence.  
  
"Sounds good," Sianna agreed.  
  
Dinner continued less eventfully for several hours, and by the time the plates and goblets were empty, everyone but Sianna was stretching tiredly and mumbling about work they needed to finish up. Sianna was just relaxing back into her chair when a very small and curious creature approached her from the side. Its huge round eyes were set on her, and its overlarge ears flopped and bobbed as it walked. Sianna did not see it coming.  
  
"Is Sianna Castell ready to follow Dobby?" it asked her.  
  
Sianna looked down at the voice coming from her elbow and barely kept herself from letting out a screech. She stared at Dobby for a moment and inhaled deeply before addressing the house elf.  
  
"Sorry?" she asked.  
  
"Dobby asks if you is ready for bed."  
  
Sianna's eyebrows rose and the surprised expression remained on her face. "Uh, sure, just one second."  
  
She turned to Professor Lupin and whispered, "What is that?"  
  
He leaned into Sianna's ear and breathed, "He's a house elf. Don't worry, he won't be offended if you ask him about himself. He's very outgoing for an elf, actually."  
  
"Oh. Right," she said, staring ahead at the tablecloth in front of her. Then she looked back at Dobby and said, "I'll just follow you, then."  
  
He nodded and beamed at her, waving his hand in a beckoning gesture. Sianna rose from her chair and bid the professors goodnight. She was too distracted to notice the particularly amused look in Dumbledore's notoriously glittering eyes.  
  
Sianna followed Dobby silently through the befuddling maze of hallways and stairs to her room. Dobby, however, was far from quiet.  
  
"Pay special attention, Miss. This be the shortest way to Miss's rooms," he told her. "There is never many house elves in this part of Hogwarts, and if Miss gets lost she may be lost for a very long time." This was not very comforting to Sianna, but she let it pass.  
  
"Down this corridor here be the office of the kind Professor Lupin..." he informed her, "and through here be a shortcut to the houses of green—that be where the talented Professor Sprout makes many plants..." and the running commentary continued all the way up to the top of a squat, slightly obscure, too-small-to-be-a-real-tower type structure situated in the west wing of the castle.  
  
Dobby opened the thick wooden door into the spacious, circular bedchamber that would be Sianna's headquarters for the remainder of the summer. Sianna stopped at the door and took a good look at the entire room, which was softly lit by several candelabras. She wandered in slowly and made her way to the huge four-poster bed. She dragged her hand lightly over the midnight blue bedspread and turned in a full circle to take in the rest of the furnishings. There was a small table and a few squishy chairs settled directly in front of an unlit fireplace, and a wide bay window let the moonlight shine on the Oriental rug.  
  
"There is a bathroom, Miss, through this door," Dobby told her, gesturing to a door hidden by the shadows.  
  
"Okay, thanks. Um, what did you say your name was?" Sianna asked, wondering if the elf in front of her was actually Dobby or if Dobby was some kind of elf-in-command. From the way he spoke, it was hard to tell.  
  
"I is Dobby. I is taking care of you, Miss, at the most generous Professor Dumbledore's request," he informed her.  
  
Sianna nodded, then remembered to ask, "Sorry, Dobby, but I really don't know anything about house elves. Would you...well, can you tell me about yourself?"  
  
Dobby looked surprised and even...honored to be asked such a question. "What does Miss want to know?"  
  
"Um, anything really," she said, not knowing what to ask. When Dobby continued to wait expectantly for specifications, she said, "Well, what do you do around here? Are there lots of you?"  
  
"Oh yes, Miss, there is more than one hundred of us in service at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Most of us works in the kitchens when the studentses is here, but we cleans and takes care of the young masters and misses also. Then the studentses leave and us house elves go to everywhere in the castle, and we fixes everything and makes all shiny and new again."  
  
Sianna was sufficiently impressed. Before she could ask another question, though, Dobby told her that he would come back at nine the next morning to take her to breakfast.  
  
"Miss is likely to lose herself here when she be tired," he explained, and she accepted the offer gratefully. Dobby then exited the room and disappeared down the widely spiraling steps.  
  
Sianna closed the door quietly behind him and crossed the room to her new bed. She threw herself lazily onto it and sank into the downy puff of pillows and blankets, wondering how long it would take her to fall asleep if she went to bed then.  
  
_I mean, I woke up like what...five, maybe six hours ago?_ she thought to herself. _Besides, it's only like nine o'clock here anyway.  
_  
She couldn't study (which she really wanted to do) because she had no material, and she wouldn't have been able to read anyway because the light was so dim. Finding nothing else to do, she uncased her guitar for the second time that day and took it over to the window, where she sat herself on the ledge and began to strum random bits of some of her favorite songs.  
  
Sianna felt restless—she didn't want to sit idly in her room when she could be exploring her new home and familiarizing herself with the enormous castle. She played lazily for several more minutes before she realized that no one had mentioned any rules against leaving her room at night. As a matter of fact, she hadn't been informed of any rules at all.  
  
_I do believe Professor Dumbledore forgot to mention something again,_ she thought mischievously as she hopped off the window ledge and set her guitar on the bed. _Maybe they think that if I'm alone, I don't need rules._ She laughed to herself put on her slippers and slipped out the door, leaving it slightly ajar, just as a precaution. She had gotten locked out of a detention classroom more than once.  
  
Once she was down the stairs, Sianna stared at her surroundings for a minute so that she would recognize the area when she returned from her walk. Then, she closed her eyes, spun in a circle, and chose to walk in the direction that she faced when she opened her eyes. She set off down the left corridor, hesitating only momentarily before she grabbed a bright torch off the wall to light her way. _No one will see me, those professors were dead on their feet. They won't be roaming the halls now, not just because of one student,_ she reasoned.  
  
Sianna's feet took her through mazes of hallways on her floor, but this section of the castle seemed relatively unused and strangely sparse. Sianna, looking for landmarks, stopped at the first painting she saw, hoping to remember where it was, so she could find her way back. She was drawn into the canvas, marveling at the lifelike quality of the lakeside landscape. The water shone impossibly and the grasses were almost moving in the imaginary wind. Sianna stared for several minutes, transfixed by the amazing beauty and near reality of the work. She finally tore herself away, wondering if it was the torch light or some kind of magic paint that made a piece of art look that way.  
  
Sianna quickly became bored with the lack of interesting places she found on her walk, so she decided to find a staircase and go to a different floor.  
  
She did not have to search for long. Barely a minute later, she found herself on the landing of a stairwell at the end of a hall. Her feet led her up step after step, and by the time she reached the top, Sianna had forgotten how many levels she had climbed. She cursed at herself, praying she would remember the way back, then started down the corridor once again.  
  
A breeze from an open window made Sianna stop, and she turned her head up to observe the night. The crescent moon rose steadily higher, covered only by the rare wisp of a passing cloud. Sianna watched reverently, letting the moonlight shine on her upturned face. Suddenly she heard a strangled snort.  
  
Her body spun reflexively, and she scanned the corridor with wary eyes, holding her torch in front of her. The noise came again, from just to her right. Something in the hallway was...snoring?  
  
Seeing nothing on the wall she stood against, she slowly approached the opposite side, still with the torch held defensively before her. She heard it again, and cocked her ear towards the source. As the torch shed its light on the stone wall where the sound seemed to come from, Sianna became even more confused. Nothing was there, except the one painting, of course. She relaxed and looked around, then jumped when the noise sounded yet again. It was coming from right in front of her, but there was nothing there!  
  
She forced herself closer to the wall, scanning it more closely, and nearly fell over when she saw the portrait of a sleeping man clearly jerk and snort, mumbling in his dreams.  
  
_People in paintings don't have dreams!_ Sianna yelled at herself, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. The fat man rolled over in his armchair and snuffled, suddenly opening his eyes and sitting up groggily.  
  
"Ah! Get that bloody light out of my eyes!" he commanded.  
  
Sianna froze. "What?" she asked after a moment.  
  
"I said, get your bloody torch out of my face!" he said, nearly yelling at this point.  
  
"Oh, um...sorry," she said weakly, pulling the torch a bit further away from the canvas.  
  
"What are you doing here? Students aren't allowed out at night, get back to your dorms."  
  
"I've got special permission. Listen, um...do all of you paintings talk?" Sianna asked curiously, having recovered a bit from the initial shock.  
  
"Of course. What kind of a question is that?" spat the man in painting, who was still rubbing his eyes sleepily.  
  
"Right then. I'll just—I'll go now...bye," Sianna said. As she walked away, the man continued muttering about rude students who wake innocent portraits up in the middle of the night.  
  
Sianna continued to wander slowly around the perimeter of the floor. She found a few strange passageways (possible shortcuts) and unused classrooms, but nothing of real interest. Her eyes began to droop slightly, and although it was far from bedtime in California, the darkness was beginning to take its toll. She started down a staircase on her way back to her room, trying desperately to remember how far up she had gone. In her preoccupation, however, Sianna failed to notice the shine reflected by the puddle on the next stair.  
  
The smooth sole of her slipper hit the water, and down she fell, instinctively letting go of the torch to catch herself. The reflexive maneuver did its job, and Sianna did not fall far, but the torch did.  
  
Sianna watched in horror as it jolted erratically down the many steps, finally coming to rest in yet another pool of liquid. Darkness engulfed her as the fire was completely extinguished.  
  
"Damn those fucking shit-headed torch-making whores to hell," she said out loud. "And screw water, too. Of all the idiot places to find water, for fuck's sake..." Sianna could not find the proper words to express her anger.  
  
"So much for finding my way back," she mused unhappily. Then, a light bulb clicked on above her head. It was not a very bright one, but Sianna considered it better than total darkness. _Maybe the man in the painting will know where I am...and how to get back,_ she thought hopefully.  
  
Sianna pushed herself up, wincing at the new bruises on her bum and elbow. She turned and trudged back up the few steps she had slid down, then began to make her way back through the maze of hallways. She had snuck out and explored unfamiliar places before, and so she had known to keep careful tabs on the turns she had made. She was significantly encouraged when she passed by several "landmarks" she had noticed during her walk.  
  
She made a few mistakes and wrong turns, but she eventually found herself back in the moonlit hallway, although the moon no longer shone through the windows. Sianna wondered about the time, knowing she had been gone for several hours but unable to pinpoint the elapsed time without the aid of her watch, which she could no longer see.  
  
She could barely make out the frame of the painting in the empty blackness of the stone corridor. She approached the painting and greeted its resident loudly, hoping that she would be able to wake him. No response came. She spoke again, louder this time, but the man still did not wake. This disconcerted Sianna, as she had no back-up plan if this man could not direct her. She squinted and leaned closer to the canvas, until her nose was almost touching it. That made it easier to see, but when Sianna was finished looking, she wished she had not.  
  
The man was not there.  
  
Sianna let a wail of disappointment and despair escape before backing up to the windows and collapsing on the floor. The thought and reasoned until she thought her brains would fry, but there was no option. She would have to stay there for the night, or risk getting even more lost. She wished beyond hope that the man in the painting would return by morning.  
  
The floor was cold and unforgiving, and this was all too apparent to Sianna as she curled into a ball and leaned against the wall. Anger and self- disgust welled up in her. She had always been able to take care of herself...how could she be so stupid as to sneak around and get lost in an unfamiliar place? She chided herself for taking her wealth of experience for granted. She had always been able to find her way back before, and she had just assumed that it would be just as easy this time.  
  
Sianna nearly cried in rage as she thought back through everything she had done since Dobby left her room. The mistakes piled up in her mind, and she eventually had to stop counting all the things she had done wrong during her little escapade. She threw her head back in disbelief at her stupidity, immediately regretting it as her skull made contact with stone. She cursed and put a hand to the back of her head, expecting to feel blood soaking through her hair. There was nothing there, and she reminded herself about the strange way that night seemed to exaggerate the slightest things.  
  
_I probably don't even have a bruise,_ she thought bitterly. Nevertheless, a pounding ache now accompanied her thoughts.  
  
After a long while of silence and stillness, the black corridor began to feel menacing and even scary. In between self-deprecating thoughts, Sianna began to feel strangely threatened by the pure nothingness that surrounded her. Whenever she started to relax a bit, some disembodied hallucination would creep up on her, only to disappear when she was fully alert and coherent again. She did not sleep that night.  
  
Even before the sun's rays had poked over the horizon, when the sky had lightened just enough for her surroundings to become vaguely visible, Sianna forced her dry, bloodshot eyes to focus, and she stood up slowly and stiffly. She made no attempt to stretch her cramped muscles or shake some of the fatigue off before crossing the hall to the painting. Thankfully, the man was in his chair once again, and once again asleep. If she had been even slightly more alive, this may have surprised Sianna, because she had not noted any snoring during the night.  
  
"Hey. Dude. Wake up," she said lazily, her grammar deteriorating with annoyance and exhaustion. The man did not move.  
  
"Okay, WAKE UP NOW," said Sianna, much louder and more forcefully this time. She had no reason to be patient, and was relieved when the man woke up. He was unhappy, of course, but Sianna did not care.  
  
Sianna's voice carried over the cursing and mumbling when she told the man, "Tell me how to get to the Great Hall."  
  
"I don't have to do anything, you insubordinate little—"  
  
"I don't have a lot of patience right now, and I won't hesitate to punch a hole through your world if you don't cooperate."  
  
"How dare—"  
  
Sianna showed him a fist. That did the job.  
  
The man squeaked, "What can I do for you, miss?"  
  
Sianna laughed a bit at his cowardice, but pushed it aside. "I need to get to the Great Hall. Tell me how," she demanded.  
  
"Well, you see, I'm really terrible at directions, and—"  
  
"Then find someone who's not," Sianna told him. He nodded and started to disappear out of the frame. Before he was out of sight, though, Sianna called, "Hey you! Remember, no directions, no home." He nodded even more vigorously and ran out of the painting.  
  
As she waited, the eastern sky lightened to a pale blue. She nearly dozed off again in the few minutes of the painted man's absence, but he returned before she could truly fall asleep.  
  
"A house elf should be along shortly, Miss. It can take you wherever you need to go," he assured her nervously, obviously still thinking of Sianna's threat.  
  
_Whoever said that violence isn't the answer has never dealt with stubborn paintings,_ Sianna thought wryly to herself.  
  
Sianna did not wait long for salvation. The house elf approached her warily, probably having heard the man in the painting recount his conversation with Sianna.  
  
"Miss, you is not supposed to be here," he told her cautiously.  
  
"I am aware," responded an irritated Sianna. "Please take me to the Great Hall."  
  
"Miss is not supposed to be there either. Miss is not allowed out of her rooms until six hours in the morning."  
  
Sianna checked her watch...it was 5:50. The timing was infuriating.  
  
Then, an idea occurred to her. She was unwilling to argue with the elf about the rules, so she tried a different approach. "Do you know who I am?" she asked the elf.  
  
"Of course, miss. You is Sianna Castell, Dobby's girl," it said, unsure of the reason for the question.  
  
"Good. Do you know where my room is?"  
  
"Yes...you wants to go there?"  
  
"Right in one," Sianna said, glad she had made progress.  
  
The elf, though, apparently did not comprehend Sianna's last statement. It just stood, waiting for an answer.  
  
"Yes, yes, I want to go to my room," Sianna clarified.  
  
The elf turned briskly and beckoned Sianna to follow, and she did. It led her through a confusing set of shortcuts and passageways, arriving at the base of her miniature tower in less than five minutes. Sianna thanked the elf profusely and dragged herself up the last few steps to her bed. She pushed open the still-ajar door and nearly fell across the room, landing on her mattress. Despite the fact that she was still clothed, she gratefully drifted off to sleep within seconds.

* * *

Three hours later, Dobby appeared, as promised, expecting to find Sianna dressed and ready to be escorted to breakfast. He was slightly dismayed that while she was indeed dressed, she remained entirely torpid.  
  
"Sianna Castell! Miss Sianna, you is got to be getting up!" he told her urgently, hovering next to her dormant face.  
  
"You is got to be getting up, miss!"  
  
Sianna mumbled and swung her arm tiredly around her, aiming for the voice. She did not make contact, though, missing by several feet.  
  
"Breakfast is ready, miss, you is got to be going there!" Dobby harassed.  
  
"Buzz off," Sianna mumbled incoherently. "Gimme five minutes..."  
  
"Miss, you is going to be getting lost without Dobby! You is got to be getting up!"  
  
Finally realizing where she was and who was speaking to her, Sianna opened her eyes fully, only to be greeted by Dobby's strangely pointed nose, magnified many times. She let out a yell before rolling over—and off the bed.  
  
'That is the second damn time I've fallen of the bed in less than forty- eight hours,' she realized with annoyance.  
  
Dobby appeared around the corner of the bed. "Dobby will wait while Miss is getting ready for breakfast," he told her, unsure of what to do for someone who had fallen out of bed. He left the room.  
  
Sianna just nodded and grabbed the side of the bed, hauling herself upright. She stumbled blearily to the bathroom, where she managed to wash her face without drowning and brush her teeth without choking. She then walked with slightly more verve to her trunk, which had been placed neatly at the end of her bed. She finally found the thin, loose cargo pants she was looking for and threw them on, along with a much tighter V-necked tee. She shoved her feet into a pair of flip-flops and poked her head out the door. Dobby was waiting on the landing.  
  
"Is Miss ready?"  
  
"As ready as I'll ever be," Sianna told him.  
  
Dobby then made his way down to the Great Hall, Sianna in tow. Most of the professors were already there; the only one missing was Snape.  
  
Dumbledore, seeing Sianna gazing curiously at Snape's place, informed her, "He takes breakfast much earlier than us late risers." Sianna looked up at him, shocked that he had volunteered that information. How had he known what she was thinking?  
  
She seated herself in the same place she had taken the night before. Lupin leaned over and told her in a stage whisper, "Don't worry, he doesn't actually read minds—contrary to popular belief."  
  
The staff chuckled knowingly at that. Sianna just smiled, feeling like the new kid on the block. These teachers had obviously been colleagues for some time, and it seemed to her that they shared a long history and intricate relationship, although this was not readily apparent. Sianna finished her eggs and toast in silence, again listening to the professors' conversation.  
  
The professors sometimes spared her a concerned glance, although she never noticed it. She seemed like such a quiet girl, not at all what they had expected from Snape's descriptions and reported tales, and Professor Snape was anything but notorious for exaggerating. They wrote it off for the time, though, as fatigue. Sianna finished her meal quickly and excused herself early. As she left, Professor Lupin reminded her to meet him by the front doors at 10:15. She nodded her understanding and left.  
  
The conversation paused as the professors shared a baffled look, and Professor Sprout finally vocalized the group's thoughts.  
  
"Well, she certainly not quite what Severus made her out to be."  
  
The group muttered their agreement, and McGonagall added, "I expected her to be much more of a handful. She's actually rather..."  
  
"Contained," finished Lupin, filling in the appropriate description.  
  
"Maybe we're all jumping to conclusions," Dumbledore offered. "It _is _one o'clock in the morning in California, perhaps she is merely weary."  
  
"Perhaps," they agreed.  
  
"You'll be spending the whole day with her, Remus. Maybe she'll open up a bit later," McGonagall said, not quite hopefully. She could not really be expected to hope for a troublemaker, but she had always favored the more—lively—students.  
  
"We'll just have to wait and see," Lupin said noncommittally. After that, the subject was closed, and the professors finished breakfast speaking of other topics. 


	6. Diagon Alley

A/N: I really didn't expect to get this out for another few days, but here you have it. This one is slightly longer than the others, so I hope you enjoy it!  
  
Also, huge thanks to Sage and Snape for reviewing! I only hope you're right.  
  
Chapter Six: Diagon Alley  
  
At precisely fifteen minutes after ten, Sianna arrived at the front door of Hogwarts. Lupin was not there yet, so she was left to wait alone for her professor.  
  
She stood idly for a few minutes, just staring up at the architectural wonder that was the Entrance Hall. The ceilings were so high that she felt dizzy looking up at designs she could just barely make out and overhead staircases that swung from wall to wall. She brought her gaze back down to the ground and regained her balance and focus while studying the shine of the genuine marble floors.  
  
The sheer size of the castle was rather intimidating, and Sianna thought, unnecessary. As she knew from visiting all those empty rooms last night, Hogwarts' space went largely unused.  
  
Sianna turned towards the huge wooden door and wondered how anyone ever managed to open it. She supposed that magic was useful in that sense; it seemed like nothing short of an atomic bomb would move the mass of wood and iron. Why would Hogwarts need a door that big anyway? Surely there was nothing that big that needed to enter the castle.  
  
Her musings were interrupted when Lupin appeared at the top of the main staircase. He approached Sianna, but made no move towards the door.  
  
"Hello, sorry I'm a bit late. Shall we get going, then?" he asked. He turned and began to walk, expecting Sianna to follow him—back into the castle?  
  
"Um, where are we going? Sir," she added, unsure how to address a proper British professor. Lupin continued to walk up the steps as he answered.  
  
"Diagon Alley. It's a—"  
  
"No, I know where we're going, but isn't it outside the castle?"  
  
"Of course it is. But that doesn't mean we have to go outside to get there," he told her. "We'll be taking the Floo Network."  
  
"Um—"  
  
"I know," he cut her off, "you want to know what the Floo Network is." By this time, they had climbed all the way to the fourth floor. "It's...well, it's really a series of magically connected fireplaces, and you use a special powder, it's called Floo powder, to activate the magical link, so to speak," he explained. "What you do is you throw the powder onto the fire, say the name of the place you're going, then just step into the fire and it'll take you where you need to go. Easy as cake."  
  
"Right," Sianna said slowly. She had never imagined that such things could exist, even with magic. Although, she thought that perhaps she should have, considering all the amazing things she had seen already during her first day in the wizarding world.  
  
Sianna had been paying to much attention to the conversation to notice where they were going. Lupin turned a final corner and entered what appeared to be an office, Sianna trailing a few steps behind. The space was unremarkable, considering the rest of the castle, but it was well furnished and inviting. Lupin beckoned to Sianna, indicating that she should stand beside him, facing the large fireplace.  
  
"I need to go first, in case anything is wrong at the other end, so watch me very carefully and do exactly as I do," Lupin warned her seriously. "You must speak very clearly, so try not to breathe in the hot air and ashes. If something goes wrong and you end up in somewhere besides Diagon Alley, stay where you are and I will come find you. Ready?"  
  
Sianna nodded.  
  
"Watch closely," he told her again. He lit the fire with his wand and took a large pinch of dust out of a ceramic bowl on the mantle. When he cast the dust into the flames, they immediately turned bright green and roared at least three feet higher. Lupin said loudly and clearly, "Diagon Alley!" He stepped into the hearth and vanished.  
  
Sianna took a deep breath as the fire returned to its normal state. She approached it and felt its radiating heat, suddenly uncomfortable rather than merry. 'This is easy, no big deal,' she reminded herself. 'I've done things a million times this scary.' She took a healthy pinch of the Floo powder and stood back a few inches before throwing it into the fireplace. The flames roared up predictably, turning the expected shade of green.  
  
'It's all or nothing,' she steeled herself. Her lungs drew in a deep breath of the cooler air over her shoulder (just in case), and she shouted assertively, "Diagon Alley!"  
  
Like the Portkey, Floo travel caused her to spin nauseatingly and made her feel like she was speeding towards her destination at thousands of miles her hour. However, this time, the colors vanished altogether, and the only light came from flashes of what looked like other fireplaces. Something knocked Sianna's elbow and she barely managed to keep her mouth shut as her arm tingled and ached. She had no interest in finding out what would enter she mouth if she opened it to curse.  
  
Sianna had hardly begun to feel herself slowing down when she was forcibly shoved out of one of the passing fireplaces.  
  
She tumbled headfirst onto a soot-covered floor, barely preventing herself from cracking her head on the stone. She stood upright and was less than pleased to find that her clothes were dusted with the same substance that graced the floor. Her face twisted into a grimace and she looked up to find Professor Lupin chuckling at her messy arrival.  
  
"It takes practice," he assured her, laughing a little. "One of my students told me that he ended up lost at the wrong fireplace his first time."  
  
"That's encouraging," Sianna said sarcastically.  
  
Lupin brightened a little, hearing the comment. 'Perhaps Dumbledore was right,' he considered. 'She might just need a little time to settle in.'  
  
"Step over here," he advised. "You never know when someone else is going to stumble out of that grate."  
  
Sianna followed his suggestion, all the while dusting the offending ashes off her clothing. Lupin waited as she finished her task, idly listening to the patrons' conversations. When she looked like she was ready, he led her out the back door of the pub.  
  
When they were outside, Sianna asked, "What was that bar that we were just in?"  
  
"That's the Leaky Cauldron. Most frequented pub in wizarding Britain, I'd bet. The only public way to get into Diagon Alley is through here, so Tom—he's the barkeep—he gets a lot of business," Lupin explained.  
  
Sianna stored that in her memory, as she did with all the new information she was constantly learning about her new life. "So...where's Diagon Alley?" she inquired, seeing no door or entryway to the street.  
  
"Here's another thing you're going to have to remember. Look, watch me...you have to tap these bricks in a special order with your wand," he said, pulling his out of a pocket in his robes. "You haven't got one yet, but you'll learn this when you do." He touched the tip of his wand briefly to several, seemingly random bricks on the wall, just next to the trash can.  
  
Sianna was wondering what was supposed to happen when the bricks suddenly started moving, sliding around and beside each other to create an increasingly large hole. Within seconds, the hole had reached the ground, and only stopped widening when it was large enough to admit a small elephant.  
  
"Cool," Sianna said, but her assessment went unheard, drowned in the flood of noise and talk that came from the bustling cobblestone streets of Diagon Alley.  
  
The sunny Sunday afternoon had attracted more than the usual crowd. What seemed like rivers of people flowed up and down the length of the single, solitary street, which was barely wide enough to accommodate the inordinate number of shoppers. As Lupin and Sianna wove their way slowly down the street, Sianna's eyes bulged at the extraordinary merchandise that the street's shops had to offer. There appeared to be at least one of each type of store—a candy store, a joke shop, a pet store, a clothing store, a bookstore—  
  
"Professor Lupin?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"What's Quidditch?" Sianna asked, gazing at the sign above Quality Quidditch Supplies.  
  
"Oh, dear. That's going to take some time to explain...why don't we wait until we're off the street?" he suggested. He had momentarily forgotten how many rudimentary things this girl had yet to learn.  
  
Sianna followed Lupin without any further questions, all the way to the end of the street, where Gringotts divided the lane into two diverging alleys. There were fewer people standing on the steps leading to the formidable building than there were on the street. Lupin stopped there and turned to Sianna.  
  
"What's in there?" she asked, referring to Gringotts.  
  
"It's the wizarding bank Gringotts. The only one we have, and this is the only location in Britain," he told her.  
  
"Oh shit! I mean—darn," she corrected herself, still unused to being in the presence of teachers during summer vacation. "I don't have any money with me."  
  
Lupin glared reproachfully at the curse, fulfilling his duty as a teacher, but then laughed. "Fortunately, we planned on that. The school is lending you money for your supplies, you just pay them back whenever you can, I suppose. You'll have to talk to the headmaster about that."  
  
They had climbed the steps by then, but when they reached the front door, Lupin stopped again. He lowered his voice and cautioned, "I forgot to mention that the bank...well, it isn't run by humans."  
  
Sianna raised her eyebrows questioningly at that. "The goblins run it," he said. Sianna started to ask what they were, but Lupin shook his head and said. "You'll see. I'm just warning you, don't offend them."  
  
"Got it," Sianna responded, thinking that she would hardly be surprised after the previous incident with Dobby the house-elf.  
  
Lupin swung open the towering door (What is it with gigantic doors in this place? Sianna thought) and ushered Sianna in before him. The interior of the bank was, she had to admit, slightly smaller than the Hogwarts Entrance Hall, but was no less flooring. She managed to keep the awe off her face as she viewed the polished marble surfaces and glittering crystal chandeliers.  
  
Lupin headed to one of the counters bordering the wall, searching his pockets as he walked. Sianna followed behind wordlessly, letting her eyes wander to the various wizards and the far more interesting creatures that worked as tellers and guides. The goblins barely measured three feet, but they did vaguely resemble humans, aside from the tough-looking, pointed faces and abnormally long appendages. She directed her thoughts back to her teacher, who was conversing with their teller.  
  
"I am here on behalf of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he said formally. He seemed slightly intimidated by the goblin. "We wish to make a withdrawal."  
  
"You have the proper authorization, I presume?" the goblin inquired. His tone bordered on menacing.  
  
Lupin handed him a sealed paper and a key.  
  
"Very well. Come this way," the goblin directed, stepping down from the block he had been standing on. He led them to another door, this one slightly more proportionate. The passageway they entered contrasted starkly with the more than spacious marble finery of the first room; this place was colder, darker, and entirely of stone. Torches in wall brackets cast the only light, besides the lanterns that each goblin carried.  
  
Here, the teller handed Lupin and Sianna off to a new goblin. This new guide gestured them down to the end of the hall, where there was a track that resembled those made for Muggle trains. A small cart was waiting on the rails, and the goblin opened its door and held it, obviously expecting Lupin and Sianna to enter first. After a moment's confused pause, Sianna complied, sitting down gingerly on the bench. Lupin sat beside her and the goblin stood on a low platform at the front, somehow directing the cart without a wheel or any such controlling device.  
  
They started to move, slowly at first, but gaining speed as they gained distance. The track began to twist and curve slightly, branching in different directions, and the degree of descent increased gradually. Sianna held the side of the cart lightly, immensely enjoying the feel of the cool air and thrill of speed. Lupin, who looked significantly less happy, held on much tighter.  
  
Eventually, the cart slowed and halted in front of an arched metal door with the numbers 9-1-6 above carved into the stone above it.  
  
"Vault nine-sixteen," the goblin announced, opening the cart and exiting. Once again, he held the door for his customers. "Key, please." Lupin handed him the miniscule golden key. He followed the goblin as he approached the door, holding the lantern just behind the guide so he could see the keyhole, which, like the key, was very small.  
  
As the key turned, Sianna heard many tiny gears click and whirl before the door swung open inwardly, apparently of its own accord. Inside rested multiple piles of gold, silver, and bronze that dazzled Sianna to no end. She wanted to blurt out an endless stream of inquiries, but she knew that Lupin would not be in the mood to entertain her until they were out of Gringotts. The place seemed to make him oddly uncomfortable.  
  
Sianna stood awkwardly outside the vault as Lupin entered, produced a small leather sack, and filled it with an assortment of coins. He completed the job hurriedly and climbed back into the cart. Sianna followed him, as did the goblin.  
  
The ride back was not quite as enjoyable, as they were headed uphill and traveling a bit slower, but it was over quickly. Lupin bowed slightly to the goblin and marched as quickly out of the passageway, out of the bank, and down to the street. Sianna trailed behind, laughing quietly at the man's obvious relief. She didn't quite understand why he detested Gringotts so, but she wouldn't bother him about it. It was none of her business anyway.  
  
"How much money is that?" she asked when she caught up with him at the bottom of the great white steps, choosing the question that happened to be at the forefront of her mind. "It looks like quite a lot."  
  
"It is," he responded. "You have to buy a wand, books, clothing, supplies...it may end up costing over thirty galleons, especially with these books—"  
  
"Galleons?"  
  
"The big gold ones," Lupin explained, pulling one out of the sack to show Sianna. "There are seventeen Sickles—they're the silver ones—in a Galleon, and twenty-nine Knuts in a Sickle. This is a Knut," he said, displaying the penny-sized bronze coin in his hand.  
  
"So how much is that in Muggle money?" Sianna asked.  
  
"Well, it depends on the market, of course, but normally it's about 5 and half pounds."  
  
"Right," Sianna said, trying to remember how many pounds went to a U.S. dollar.  
  
"That would be ten dollars," Lupin reminded her quietly.  
  
"Thanks," she said. 'How does he know all this stuff?' she thought, but she decided to leave that for another time. "So why do the goblins run the bank? Do they own it?" she asked, springing another question on him.  
  
He appeared to contemplate that for a moment. After a pause, he said, "You know, I really have no idea how—or why, or when—the goblins started running Gringotts. I suppose that's something Professor Binns talked about in his class...no wonder I don't know."  
  
"Who's Professor Binns?" she asked. They had begun to walk back up the street, again weaving their way through a thick crowd.  
  
"He's the History of Magic teacher back at the school. He's a ghost, very boring...no one pays attention in that class. Well, Hermione probably does," he conceded. Then, realizing that Sianna would also have no idea who Hermione was, he added, "She's a student...in your year, in fact. You'll room with her if you end up in Gryffindor."  
  
Sianna didn't know how to respond to that, so she just remained silent. A few seconds later, Lupin turned towards a shop, waving for Sianna to follow. She glanced swiftly at the sign before she entered. It read Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.  
  
The inside of the shop was full of sunlight let in from the windows. Sianna gazed around at the extensive racks of robes and accessories and the customers that perused them.  
  
"This should be interesting," she said to no one.  
  
"Sorry?" said Lupin. He turned around and looked at his student.  
  
"It just that I've never worn robes before. Then again, I guess that buying my first set of wizard clothing is kind of like an initiation, don't you think?"  
  
He laughed. "I never thought of it like that, but I suppose it is."  
  
A short, round, cheery woman approached. She had a tape measure in her hand.  
  
"Can I help you two?" she asked.  
  
"She's here for Hogwarts robes," Lupin informed her. "And she'll need dress robes as well."  
  
"Oh, you've outgrown your school uniform, have you now? Come back here dear, we'll get you all fixed up," Madam Malkin said endearingly.  
  
Sianna followed the woman to the back of the store, where several customers were being measured and fitted. Lupin, who was left standing alone, sighed and sank into the small couch at the front of the store. He supposed that it had been placed there specifically for the many males who were forced accompany females on shopping trips.  
  
Waiting on such a couch on the opposite side of the room was another male, one with bleach-blond hair and piercing gray eyes. Draco Malfoy waited for his mother, who was once again out shopping for dress robes. The couch was familiar to him, as his father had long ago refused to take his wife shopping for clothes ever again. The duty had been passed to his son. Draco was just wondering how much clothing a single person could possibly need when Sianna passed right in front of him, heading towards the back of the store. Draco looked up and studied her unfamiliar form.  
  
'Now, why have I not seen her before? I cannot possibly have failed to notice a pretty thing like that...she must not go to Hogwarts,' he though to himself, his eyes following the girls movements.  
  
"Now dear, what size robe do you wear? And if you'll tell me what house you're in, I can get those patches sewn on while you're here, if you like," Madam Malkin told Sianna. Draco listened curiously, looking elsewhere but directing his attention toward the girl.  
  
"Actually...I have no idea what size robe I wear, because I've never worn robes before," Sianna told her. The American accent shocked Draco, as did the statement itself.  
  
Madam Malkin, also hearing Sianna's accent for the first time, asked, "Do they not have robes in America?" Draco was wondering the same thing.  
  
This surprised Sianna, but she decided that it would be easier to lie than to tell the whole story. "They have robes, but we don't have to wear them to school," she said.  
  
'Well that's odd,' Draco thought.  
  
Madam Malkin asked, "So you're a transfer, dearie, is that it?"  
  
"Yes, that's exactly it, so I don't know what house I'm in because they haven't Sorted me yet," Sianna explained. It was plausible enough. Draco hoped she would end up in Slytherin...or at least not Gryffindor. Anywhere but Gryffindor.  
  
"Well then, this could take a wee bit more time than I expected. We'd best get started," Madam Malkin said.  
  
The next half hour was filled with enough measuring, pinning, cutting, sizing, trimming, and trying on to last Sianna a lifetime. Even Draco got bored watching her. And she hadn't even picked out dress robes yet! When the seamstresses finished with her torture session, she left the back area to browse the racks while they put together her school robes. Lupin, seeing that she was finished in the back, called out to her.  
  
"Are you done then?" He sounded bored and weary.  
  
Draco, hearing the familiar voice, sat up and glanced across the room, then sank back down when he saw his professor. Lupin was definitely not someone he wished to converse with. So much for talking to her, he thought. He was not going to risk being seen by his teacher to flirt with a pretty girl.  
  
Sianna truly pitied Lupin when she said, "I haven't looked for dress robes yet." His eyes bulged slightly before he leaned back into the couch with a heavy sigh.  
  
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, the seamstresses finished fitting Narcissa Malfoy's dress robes.  
  
"Draco, dear," she called out, "come here please. I'm finished."  
  
Draco paid for the robes, as expected, and led his mother towards the front. As he held the door open, Sianna turned and glanced up, making eye contact for just a moment. Draco smiled smoothly, but she just looked back down at the rack as if no one had been there. Draco walked out behind his mother, confused and intrigued. He was actually looking forward to the start of the school year.  
  
Sianna quickly found a color that she liked, and though she doubted the robe would fit, she took it off the rack and carried it to the back. She showed Madam Malkin and asked her to adjust it so that it would fit, just using the measurements of her school robes. Sianna, while not quite as bored as Lupin, was not a born shopper, and she was tired of clothing.  
  
"Oh, that blue is splendid, just wonderful for you. And it's nice and dark, it'll make you look so mature..." Madam Malkin rambled in glee at Sianna's choice. "I'll get it fixed right up, you'll look perfect, dear."  
  
"Great. I'll just be...looking around," Sianna said.  
  
Thankfully, Madam Malkin was an adept seamstress and, with a little help from her wand, could prepare Sianna's robes in only ten minutes. Lupin gladly took care of the transaction and rushed out of the shop. Sianna could barely say "thank you" before they were again in the middle of the cobblestone street, headed for another store.  
  
Sianna was overjoyed to see that their next destination was a bookstore—Flourish and Blotts. Lupin looked much happier in here as well, and he handed Sianna a long list of titles to find before wandering off to browse.  
  
The list had enough books on it for at least three years of magical education, which added up to more than twenty texts. Sianna searched for any indicators of organization in the many aisles and shelves, but found only a few of the books on her own. After ten frustrated minutes of searching for Magical Drafts and Potions, she gave up and approached a man who was replacing copies of various books on the shelves.  
  
"Excuse me, sir," she said. The young man turned to look down at her from his ladder.  
  
He began to climb down, asking, "Can I help you?"  
  
"I'm looking for these," Sianna explained, offering him the list. He looked at it, eyebrows raised. He let out an appreciative whistle at the number of texts she needed.  
  
"Well I can certainly help you," he said. "Even so, this might take a little time."  
  
The young man took nearly ten minutes to assemble the collection. He would accumulate a stack and take it to the table where Sianna waited, drop it in front of her, and rush back to the shelves for more. Lupin wandered over at some point and laughed at the growing pile of texts.  
  
"We're going to need to shrink those," he said.  
  
"I was wondering how we'd manage to carry them all," Sianna admitted.  
  
Just then, the man returned to the table. "These are the last ones," he huffed, heaving the stack onto the table and slapping the list on top. "Is that all you need?"  
  
"Yes, thanks," Sianna told him. He seemed relieved. They paid right there at the table, then Lupin shrank the package to the size of a single book and handed it to Sianna.  
  
"What time is it?" Sianna asked as they exited the bookstore.  
  
"12:30," Lupin responded. "What would you say to lunch at the Leaky Cauldron?"  
  
"Sounds good." Truthfully, though, Sianna just wanted to sit down. Her lack of sleep was making a comeback, and she felt like she would die if she didn't close her eyes for a minute.  
  
A waitress led the two shoppers to a booth near the bar and took their drink orders. Sianna let her head drop to the table with an exhausted sigh, and Lupin, amused, looked at her and chuckled.  
  
"Tired?" he asked.  
  
"More than you could possibly know," Sianna mumbled, her speech muffled by her arm.  
  
"What, didn't have a good night?"  
  
"That would be the understatement of the millennium." Lupin laughed. He liked the girl more every minute.  
  
"Would a Quidditch discussion wake you up, then?" he asked, remembering the first question of the day.  
  
Sianna lifted her head curiously, although her eyes were still half-closed. "So what exactly is Quidditch?"  
  
Lupin grinned. "The best sport ever invented," he responded. "And the only wizarding sport worth playing." Sianna urged him on with a nod. "There are seven players on each team..." and he proceeded to explain the jobs of the multiple players and balls.  
  
"Quidditch is very popular at Hogwarts, actually. Each house has its own team, at the house with the most points scored at the end of the year gets the Quidditch Cup. It's a very great honor," Lupin explained.  
  
"Did you play when you were in school?" Sianna asked.  
  
"No, but my best friends did. One was a beater and the other was a seeker, both on the Gryffindor team."  
  
"You were in Gryffindor too?"  
  
"Yes," Lupin said, looking proud and sad at the same time. Sianna decided not to prod, and she left the subject alone.  
  
"Quidditch...it sounds awesome...but I doubt I'd be any good at it. I'd have to learn how to fly, first of all," Sianna conceded.  
  
"You'll have all summer to learn," Lupin reminded her.  
  
"Do you think I'd be good at it?" she asked.  
  
"I have no idea. I'd have to see you on a broom first," Lupin told her.  
  
They finished lunch lazily and with little conversation, then returned to the street to finish buying supplies. They stopped in an apothecary, where Sianna found a basic potions kit, along with a few extra ingredients. She passed up the offer of a pet, having never had one before. She wasn't sure she wanted to worry about an animal as well as her studies.  
  
Their last important stop was at Ollivanders. Sianna felt a strange sense as she entered the dusty, cluttered wand shop, as if the ceiling-high stacks of narrow boxes were watching her, judging her worthiness. The room was empty...there were no customers or sales people. 'Well you only need to get a wand once,' Sianna considered. 'I guess that means this place doesn't get a whole lot of business.'  
  
Her head jerked towards a hidden aisle, following the sound of a ladder sliding along shelves. The ladder stopped with a bump, and a wizened old man stepped off and approached.  
  
"Ah, Remus Lupin. Ten inches, oak, unicorn hair core...good for curse-work if my memory serves me," Mr. Ollivander said. His eyes turned to Sianna. "And my memory always does," he added.  
  
He looked Sianna over for a moment, appearing to search his mind for a name, and possibly a wand, to put with the face. Finally he asked, "Now who do we have here? You aren't a Hogwarts student, are you?"  
  
"This is Sianna Castell," Professor Lupin told him. "She'll be starting at Hogwarts this year."  
  
Mr. Ollivander turned his head to the side but kept his eye fixed on Sianna's face. "but you can't be less than fourteen..."  
  
Sianna broke eye contact to look questioningly at Lupin. He nodded, so she explained, "I just came here from California. Both my parents are Muggles, and..." She didn't know which parts of the story to leave out. "Well, no one knew I was a witch until now," she summarized. Mr. Ollivander looked unconvinced, but he accepted her story for the time.  
  
He led them to a small counter and set a self-operating measuring tape to work. It measured her arms, wrist, head, neck, ears, and fingers before crumpling to the floor in a heap. Mr. Ollivander completely ignored it and shuffled off to find a wand.  
  
"Well done," Lupin whispered sarcastically when the other man was gone, referring to the introductory conversation.  
  
Sianna relaxed a bit and laughed quietly. "It's just such a long story. I don't want to have to tell it to every single person I meet..."  
  
"I understand," Lupin said. "It was just slightly amusing to listen to you gloss over the whole thing."  
  
Mr. Ollivander returned, carrying a several wands with him. He set the boxes down on the counter and opened one delicately. "Holly and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches," he said, handing the wand to Sianna. She stood stupidly, unsure what to do. "Well, go on, wave it around a bit."  
  
She did so, but before anything happened, Mr. Ollivander reclaimed the wand, saying, "No, no, not that one...here, thirteen inches, beech and phoenix feather." He handed her another wand. This one also did not please him.  
  
Sianna tried all the wands in the pile, but none seemed to fit. This challenge only seemed to cheer Mr. Ollivander, though, and he happily shuffled off to retrieve another stack. None of those pleased him, either.  
  
"Miss Castell, what house are you in?" he asked suddenly.  
  
Sianna was slightly taken aback by the unexpected question, and she told him, "I haven't been Sorted yet."  
  
"Which house would you like to be in?" he prodded. This made Sianna furrow her brow in thought.  
  
"Not Hufflepuff, definitely...I don't know," she though out loud. "Gryffindor seems fun, if a little rowdy...and I've always loved learning, so Ravenclaw sounds good, but I don't really study a lot. And Slytherin...well, I just don't know. I was counting on the Sorting Hat telling me," she said to Mr. Ollivander.  
  
"I see..." he said. This information seemed important for her wand selection. "Hm..." He remained pensive for a minute before turning and shuffling off to find another wand.  
  
"That was strange," Lupin said. "I've never heard of him doing such a thing before. He certainly didn't ask me about my house preference." Sianna didn't say anything.  
  
Mr. Ollivander returned a minute later with a single box in his hand. "Cherry wood, twelve and a half inches, dragon heartstring," he said, handing the wand to Sianna. She grasped it in her right hand and felt the magic surge up her arm. She started to wave the wand, and as soon as she moved, it began to write in the air, leaving a shining pearl trail where it passed.  
  
"Oh, wonderful! Yes, this is perfect. My father made this wand at least a hundred years ago...I have been trying to find its owner ever since...very good, yes, very good indeed," he muttered as he wrapped up the package. They paid seven galleons for the wand and Sianna thanked him and started for the door. Lupin began to follow, but Mr. Ollivander caught his arm.  
  
"Watch her," he cautioned the professor quietly, out of Sianna's hearing. "That wand is as powerful as they come, and since we can only assume that the wand chooses the wizard for a reason..." Lupin, surprised, nodded his understanding and left. He would have to relate the conversation to the headmaster later.  
  
Sianna was ready to collapse by the time they had finished in Ollivanders, but she knew she would regret it later if she passed by both the joke shop and the candy store without even looking around a bit. She shook off the unsettling feelings from Mr. Ollivander's shop, mustered up the last of her energy, and entered the candy store, Lupin trailing behind her.  
  
"You know, if I buy ten pounds of candy and eat it all tonight, then die of a heart attack, it's your fault," he warned her.  
  
"I accept full liability for your health, Professor Lupin, really, I do," she laughed, looking around at the plethora of sugar. "Don't wizards have magic to cure that sort of thing anyway?" she joked.  
  
Lupin laughed, then remembered something rather important. "Oh, by the way, you might want to exercise caution when buying wizard candy. Some of it is..."  
  
"Dangerous?" Sianna suggested, looking at a pile of Pepper Imps ("breathe fire for your friends!").  
  
"Well...yes. Okay, yes, it's dangerous," Lupin admitted.  
  
They spent the next few minutes picking out all the things Sianna "had to try" in order to be as much of a candy connoisseur in the wizarding world as she had been in the Muggle one. She ended up with a huge bag full of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Fizzing Whizbees, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Licorice Wands, and some other things Sianna could not quite name.  
  
"Are we done now?" Lupin asked bluntly as they exited the store. He was getting more than sick of shopping.  
  
"One more stop, then we're through," Sianna said. She yawned.  
  
"What? Where?" he asked as they headed down the street.  
  
Sianna just headed wordlessly into the joke shop. She heard Lupin behind her, unsuccessfully attempting to hide his glee. "I figured it would appeal to a Gryffindor," she told him.  
  
"Hey, you're not supposed to stereotype against houses until you're in one..."  
  
"Alright," she said, looking around at the unfamiliar merchandise, "I take it I'll need just as much help here as I did back there. I have no idea what any of this is," Sianna lamented.  
  
"We can help you there!" Sianna turned and stared at two absolutely identical redheaded boys who approached her and Lupin.  
  
"If it isn't Fred and George Weasley! Good to see you boys," Lupin greeted, shaking hands with both. "Stocking up for the school year?" he asked.  
  
"Actually, sir, we've taken summer jobs here," one of them (Sianna couldn't tell which) answered.  
  
"Who's this, then?" the other one asked, turning to Sianna. She smiled.  
  
"This is Sianna Castell. She's starting at Hogwarts this year," Lupin introduced.  
  
"Nice to meet you," she said, holding out her hand.  
  
One of the twins bowed nobly and kissed it, and the other smacked his brother on the side of his head. That one said, "You can't possibly be a first year, though."  
  
"Well, I'm not really...I'm fifteen, but—well, it's a long story," Sianna said, not wanting to go into it.  
  
"So, practical jokes are a bit different where you come from, are they?" Fred or George said.  
  
"Don't worry, follow us," the other one said, leading Sianna to the back.  
  
"I'm just going to look around then, shall I?" Lupin called, but no one was listening. "Boys," he sighed. "They'll never change."  
  
Meanwhile, the twins were giving Sianna a full tour of the shop, lending their expert advice on the best way to set off a Dungbomb or sneak Frog Spawn Soap into the showers. Sianna had just finished paying for her many purchases when the twins pulled her aside.  
  
"Here," one of them whispered furtively, passing an oddly shaped package to her. "Take this. We invented it ourselves—"  
  
"But we haven't been able to test it yet. So we need you to take it to Hogwarts—"  
  
"And sneak it off to someone there."  
  
"What does it do?" Sianna asked warily.  
  
"You'll see," they chorused. "Just owl us when you do it and tell us what happened," one added. "Our address is in there," the other said.  
  
"Alright," Sianna agreed. "This is going to be interesting..." said as she walked away.  
  
"Don't get caught!" the twins called after her. She turned and waved before following Lupin out the door.  
  
"What was that about?" he asked.  
  
"Oh, nothing," Sianna lied.  
  
Lupin gave her a disbelieving look, but Sianna was gazing innocently in the other direction. 


	7. Think Slowly, Speak Quickly

AN: This chapter was written almost entirely in secret—my grandparents are visiting from across the country, and I'm not supposed to "disappear upstairs and only come down to eat," which is what I normally do when I write. No, I have to _entertain_, and keep them _company_, and so on a so forth. Right now, though, I'm "taking a nap." (Hey, I had to do _something _to get away!) Anyway, here's the next chapter. Don't hesitate to email me or leave a review with your ideas!  
  
Chapter Seven: Think Slowly, Speak Quickly  
  
Tutoring had commenced with much eagerness and excitement on Sianna's part. She was, as promised, a quick and willing learner in most subject areas. By the end of the third day, the professors were bragging to each other about her excelled pace and ability to swiftly grasp even the most complex ideas. But there was one class, one subject, one teacher that just did not agree with Sianna.  
  
"You've got to pronounce it _clearly!" _Professor McGonagall repeated for what felt like the thousandth time. "And wave the wand like _this_...not so forcefully!"  
  
Try as she might, though, Sianna still could not manage to turn her match into a needle, and her fuse was running short. "I'm _trying!" _she asserted, annoyed at her professor's nagging. Sianna should have been in bed reading, or even studying something useful, but no...she had to spend her evening having extra tutoring in Transfiguration. Yes, she was that bad.  
  
She attempted the incantation several more times, but only on the last did her match change in the slightest. Professor McGonagall inspected the work, which looked a bit like a flimsy toothpick, and nodded tiredly.  
  
"That's all for today, then..." she dismissed, "but I expect you to practice this night and day until it is _perfect! _This should not take three days to accomplish, young lady."  
  
"Yes, professor," Sianna grumbled as she exited the classroom. 'What's the point anyway?' she whined silently. 'Who wants their matches to turn into needles? No one.'  
  
Her feet dragged lazily as she made her way back to her rooms. When she arrived at the base of her mini-tower, she flung the door open gratefully, but froze in surprise when she heard a thud and a painful squeak.  
  
She peered cautiously around the edge of the door and, upon seeing Dobby struggling to haul himself off the floor, began apologizing profusely. When he was up and coherent again, he straightened, cleared his throat, and dutifully delivered his message. "Madame Hooch asks Dobby to tell you that you has another flying lesson tomorrow at nine in the morning," he said slowly, sounding as if he had spent time memorizing the words by heart.  
  
This news significantly cheered Sianna, and she thanked the house elf before he disappeared into the corridor. She climbed the rest of the stairs much more energetically and jumped giddily on the bed. Sianna loved learning magic (how could she not?), but one thing that really caught her imagination was flying. As she lay spread-eagled on her four-poster, she closed her eyes and recalled the wind in her ears, the adrenaline heat in her face...the thrill of unhindered speed and absolute control...  
  
The memory of flight lulled her into a sound and content sleep.

* * *

The two figures that had been in the sky above the Quidditch pitch earlier were no longer there. Draco had noticed the fliers as he crossed the Hogwarts grounds with his father an hour ago, but they had been too far away to be clear. The window in Dumbledore's office, through which he now gazed, was much closer to the field, but there was no one left to be seen on the grounds.  
  
He was not really surprised that some of the professors might fancy a good go around the field every once in a while, but he was curious to see which one it had been. A few of the teachers had played Quidditch as students, and he was particularly anxious to see Professor McGonagall, who had a reputation as a formidable Chaser, on a broomstick. It certainly would have been interesting to watch teachers compete against each other in the air.  
  
He stared vacantly out the window for several more dull minutes as his father spoke with the headmaster in the background. Then the talking stopped, and Draco felt a jab in his ribs.  
  
Draco turned his head quickly and straightened. "Do pay attention, Draco. I am here because of you," Lucius whispered furiously at his son.  
  
The headmaster, who had been facing his bookshelves, turned to face his visitors once again. "I really see no reason why he should not be able to stay here while you go to France," came Dumbledore's slow reply. "Although I am not exactly clear as to why he does not simply go with you."  
  
Lucius appeared supremely offended by this intrusion of privacy, and he answered scathingly, "As I said, we have _business _to attend to. It would not be—appropriate for Draco to accompany us."  
  
Dumbledore peered skeptically over his half-moon lenses at Lucius. "Very well then," he sighed. "I shall have a house elf take your bags to the Slytherin dormitories," he said to Draco.  
  
"Yes, sir," Draco responded, rising from his chair. He knew a dismissal when he heard one. His father followed suit, exiting after him. They walked briskly to the Entrance Hall, where Lucius stopped and broke the tense silence with a stern warning.  
  
"You know how to conduct yourself properly," he said threateningly. "However, should you chose to behave in an otherwise unfashionable manner, you know well that it will not go unnoticed."  
  
"Yes, father," Draco said, trying not to sound too insubordinate.  
  
"I have my little spies, and I _will _find out."  
  
"I understand, father." Yes, he certainly did.  
  
"Good," he said, and swept away, velvet cape billowing and cane clicking harshly beside him.  
  
Draco rolled his eyes at his sire's back and turned around, heading to the dungeons to find Professor Snape, his godfather. Draco had nothing to occupy him for the next few days, and if Snape was good for anything, he could most definitely find something productive for his godson to do. That, and Snape was the only person that could possibly help Draco glean some more plausible explanation for his parents' sudden decision to visit their vacation home in France.  
  
He followed the familiar path down the torch-lit stone corridors, mulling over his father's unusual behavior. Lucius had come crashing into the library the night before, tense and red-faced, and ordered Draco to start packing. Draco had hardly opened his mouth before his father had stalked over and physically hauled him out of his chair, yelling all the while about indolent, disrespectful children who cannot follow the simplest of directions. The yelling bit was not really that surprising, but Lucius was not normally so easily provoked. Draco had waited until the morning to try to ask what was going on, but even then he got no real answer.  
  
Draco could not pretend that Lucius was an open or truthful person, but he could remember few times that his father had provided such an unsatisfactory—and obviously false—explanation for his actions. A vacation without "bothersome" teenagers plaguing their relaxation? Draco was almost ashamed of his father's pathetically unconvincing lie.  
  
He still did not know the truth, though, and was no closer to discovering it when he arrived at the potions classroom. Surprisingly, the door was wide open, although the room appeared empty.  
  
Draco entered cautiously. "Professor Snape?" he called towards the door to the supply closet, thinking his teacher might be searching for an ingredient.  
  
"He'll be back in a minute," came a voice from behind him. Draco whirled and froze, recognizing the pretty girl from Diagon Alley. Her stark black hair was tied away from her face and she was leaning over a lightly smoking cauldron, stirring carefully. "He just went to get something from his office," she added without looking up.  
  
"Oh," Draco replied lamely, not knowing what else to say. The girl stirred for another moment, and then, looking satisfied, extinguished the flames under the cauldron and meticulously filled a vial with a sample of the potion. She carried several knives and a spoon past Draco (who was still standing stupidly) to the sink, scoured them with the magical disinfecting solution, and walked back to her table. Only after she had put away all her tools and ingredients did she say anything else.  
  
"I'm Sianna Castell, by the way," she said to Draco, holding out her hand.  
  
Draco snapped out of his confusion and shook it. "Draco Malfoy," he introduced.  
  
"Nice to meet you," Sianna said. She turned back to the table and pulled the rubber band out of her hair, shaking her head lightly, and picked her bag up off the floor.  
  
"So...you're from America?" Draco asked in an attempt to fill the awkward silence.  
  
"Yep," Sianna said as she packed up her books. "Southern California."  
  
Draco didn't know how to respond to that, so he just tried the best line of conversation he could think of. "You know, I saw you a while ago..." Draco began tentatively, "in Madam Malkin's, the robe shop in Diagon Alley. You said you were a transfer student?"  
  
Sianna stopped and recalled her conversation with Madam Malkin. Her eyes widened in horror as she realized that she had lied to the woman. Well, she hadn't really lied as much as omitted the truth. Even so, this boy had no idea that she wasn't just a regular witch from another school. For all he knew, she was just as adept at magic as he, with magical parents as well.  
  
Sianna paused before answering, wavering mentally. Should she correct him and get the story straight, or just go along with what he thought was true? Her mind knew the logical answer, but her unheeding mouth decided for her.  
  
"Yeah, I wanted to do a year abroad, so I came here," she said, cursing her rebellious tongue silently before she even finished the statement.  
  
"What school did you go to?" Draco inquired.  
  
"Um..." Sianna stalled, panicking slightly. She didn't know any American magic schools! Luckily, Professor Snape chose that moment to enter the classroom.  
  
"Mr. Malfoy, I didn't expect to see you here," he said, although his features showed no surprise.  
  
"I didn't either, sir," Draco replied a little tiredly. A raised eyebrow from Snape prompted him to say, "I'll explain later." He really did not want to go into family affairs in front of a near stranger.  
  
Sianna's eyes darted back and forth between the two, and she sensed something deeper than a student-teacher relationship. Of course, she too could not help but wonder what the boy was doing at school in the middle of summer, but it was obvious that he would not speak in front of her. Well then, she would just have to find out another way.  
  
"Here, professor," she interrupted, handing him the sample. He took his eyes off Draco for a moment to evaluate his other student's work. He uncorked the vial and sniffed, testing the basic potion's adequacy using merely his senses and experience.  
  
"Good work. You are free to go," he dismissed, pocketing the sample. Sianna shouldered her bag and left the classroom, sparing a curious glance behind her. Fortunately, she only had to look a few feet down the hall for a statue to hide behind, and she flattened herself against the shadowed wall, slowing her breathing until it was barely audible. (That made it easier to listen.)  
  
Back in the classroom, Snape looked at Draco. The boy had an amused and slightly shocked look on his face. "Good work? I don't believe I remember the last time you said that voluntarily to—well, anyone," he laughed. Sianna's eyebrows flew up. Was it possible that the snarky Potions Master was even _less _forgiving with his other students?  
  
Snape glared viciously at the boy for his insolence, but did not bother with punishment. "Come with me," he said.  
  
Sianna held her breath as Snape exited the classroom, Draco following behind. Thankfully, they did not have to pass Sianna to get to Snape's office, which was where they headed. She waited until they turned the corner, then crept behind them stealthily. When she reached the closed office door, she sank down next to the gap between the wood and the floor and listened intently.  
  
Meanwhile, Snape and Draco seated themselves in the only two chairs in the room.  
  
"So..." Snape said. It was all the encouragement Draco needed.  
  
"The whole thing is ridiculous, really...started just last night. Father suddenly decided that he needed some 'alone' time with mum or some bloody stupid thing like that, and the next thing I know I'm packing to come here for some unspecified amount of time while they go off to _France_..." he blurted angrily. His normally ceremonial sneer was genuine, and Snape thought he looked unusually disgusted. His tone made his true thoughts obvious.  
  
"You think your father lied," he inferred.  
  
Draco nodded. "I've no idea why, though," he admitted. Snape looked pensive, but Draco couldn't tell what he was thinking. "And it was so annoying," he continued, "because I knew right away that he wasn't telling the truth. Usually father's really a brilliant liar, you know? But last night...I dunno _what _was going on," he finished.  
  
Snape thought he knew, though. This only confirmed the suspicions he'd held for weeks: that Lucius Malfoy was in contact with the Dark Lord. Lucius was not a spontaneous man; the only reasonable explanation for this episode would be a sudden command from his master. Where the elder Malfoy had actually gone, Snape could not fathom, but he was almost certain that Lucius was nowhere near France.  
  
"Professor?" prompted Draco when Snape did not reply.  
  
"I don't know either, Draco," he lied. That kind of volatile information was not to be put in the hands of a fifteen-year-old, however trustworthy. The room was silent for a minute before Snape said, "Go unpack, then come back here and help me prepare the ingredients for the Wolfsbane. And don't you look at me like that," he added when he saw the disdainful grimace on Draco's face.  
  
"Yes, sir," Draco said, and exited the room. Sianna was already jogging silently back up to the main floor.

* * *

Draco was bored. Two days had passed since his arrival, and although the professors sometimes sent him on errands or delegated some less desirable task to him, there were still times that he had nothing to do, and this was one of them.  
  
He paced the Slytherin common room, looking for something—anything—that would occupy him. Unfortunately, he'd read all the books on the shelves that were worth looking at, and there was nothing else of any interest. He'd entertained the thought of going to the library, but he could just not bring himself to do something like that on a Saturday morning. Finally, though, he could stand the idleness no longer, and, seeing know alternative, he left the circle he'd been tracing and stalked straight out of the Slytherin dormitories.  
  
He climbed all the way up to the third floor without slowing down, and stopped only when he reached the library doors. He drew a long, deep, calming breath and pulled them open, slipping in quietly, unnoticed. He passed through several towering rows of books, heading toward the back, but stopped before he reached his destination.  
  
Sianna was sitting at a long wooden table, texts and charts spread around her in a messy formation. She scribbled furiously for a few seconds, then checked her references before putting her quill back to the paper and writing again.  
  
Draco approached silently from behind, circled around, and sat himself directly across from her.  
  
"Hey, Castell," he greeted coolly.  
  
She looked up, unsurprised (she had heard him coming), and asked, "Why do you call me that? This isn't a football team, you know...you can call me by my first name."  
  
Draco's brow creased in confusion. "What's football?" he asked.  
  
Sianna rolled her eyes at his ignorance. "It's this sport where you—oh, never mind. It's a Muggle thing," she summarized. "That's beside the point."  
  
"Sorry, _Sianna_," Draco said. "It's just what people do, they call each other by their last names. That's all. But what's all this about Muggles? They wouldn't know a good sport if it danced naked on the table."  
  
"If you say so," she said diplomatically before turning back to her work. It could be dangerous to engage in an argument about Muggles with someone who seemed so obviously opposed to them. Sianna couldn't guarantee that she could keep her temper with someone insulting her whole world, and she wasn't going to risk blowing her cover just yet, although she would have to eventually.  
  
"What are you writing?" Draco asked, ignoring the comment.  
  
"An essay for Herbology," she responded without looking up. "I'm almost done." It was true—she wrote only one more sentence before ending with a flourish and setting down her quill with a sigh. She leaned her chair back on two legs and stretched.  
  
"So...what's up?" she asked Draco, having no one else to talk to.  
  
He raised his eyebrows and sighed, "I'm bored. I've got nothing to do."  
  
"Yeah, that's what sucks about not having anybody around but teachers."  
  
"You seem to be doing okay. I don't think I've seen you more than once this whole time, meals aside."  
  
"I've been doing a lot of studying. I have to go to tutoring three times every day, plus I've got homework to do," Sianna explained.  
  
"What for? I mean, you've been going to school all this time, why should you have to go in the summer?"  
  
Sianna's chair thudded back down onto all four legs and reminded herself that Draco had no idea what she was really doing at Hogwarts. "The curriculum in the U.S. is really different from here," she said, glossing over her mistake. "I just haven't learned the same stuff that you guys have, and I've got a lot of catching up to do."  
  
"How old are you?" Draco asked, looking her up and down as if he would be able to tell that way.  
  
"Fifteen," Sianna said. "I'm supposed to be a fifth year, according to the Hogwarts system."  
  
"I'm a fifth year, too, in Slytherin," Draco said excitedly (or as excitedly as a dignified Malfoy could).  
  
"Really? Do you like it? I mean, of course you _like _it, but...what's it like in there?" Sianna asked curiously. She hoped that he could help her figure out which house she wanted to be in, as she'd had a disturbing dream or two about the Sorting Hat not being able to choose for her.  
  
"It's great," Draco said, all full of house pride. "Everybody's really loyal, you know, we stick together. We've gotten a bad reputation in the past few years...but it's really not like they say it is. You have to talk to someone who's actually in Slytherin to get the real story, everyone else will tell you it's terrible and biased and that everybody's into Dark Arts and crap. But really, it's full of some pretty smart people—not like Ravenclaw, but—we look out for each other. And we have a really brilliant Quidditch team."  
  
"You play Quidditch?" Sianna asked, curious. Slytherin didn't sound so bad, really. Interesting, if nothing else.  
  
"Yeah, I'm Seeker for Slytherin," he said proudly. "Do you play?"  
  
"I wish," Sianna proclaimed. "I only just learned how to fly, I don't think I'm good enough to play."  
  
Draco gaped. "You _just _learned how to fly?! What, don't they have brooms in America?"  
  
"They do...I just never tried it, that's all," Sianna said, defending herself.  
  
Draco pushed his chair back suddenly and stood up. "You're coming with me," he told her. "We are going to learn how to play Quidditch."  
  
Sianna looked unsure. "I really don't think I'm that—"  
  
"I won't take 'no' for an answer, _Sianna_," Draco warned.  
  
She gave in, laughing. "All right," she said, "but let me put my stuff away. I'll meet you on the field in fifteen minutes."  
  
"You'd better," Draco said in a mock-threat.  
  
Sianna laughed again and walked out of the library, heading for her room. Draco dashed to his dorm to find his broom, grinning all the way.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Sianna was waiting on the pitch and Draco was jogging down the grassy slope to meet her.  
  
"Somebody's late," she said as he arrived.  
  
"Just because you're early doesn't mean I'm late. Here," he said, handing her one of the two brooms he carried. She stared at the polished ebony handle and the sliver fastenings with awe. The tail was smooth and streamlined, completely unlike the school brooms she had gotten used to.  
  
"Whose _is _this?" she asked.  
  
"That's mine. It's a Nimbus Two Thousand and One."  
  
"Then whose is that?" she inquired, pointing at the broom in Draco's hand, which was equally as sleek.  
  
"This is Uncle Severus's broom. He let me borrow it for the day," Draco explained.  
  
"Uncle Severus?"  
  
"Professor Snape."  
  
"He's your _uncle?" _Sianna asked, wide-eyed.  
  
"Well, not really. He's my godfather, I just call him my uncle," Draco explained.  
  
Sianna still looked shocked, but she nodded anyway and mounted her broom. When she kicked off, she was nearly blown away (literally) by the force of the acceleration. She managed to hang on, though, and jerked to a stop about fifty feet up.  
  
Draco shot up just behind her, stopping where she did. "These brooms might be a bit faster than what you're used to," he said belatedly.  
  
Sianna glared. "Thanks for _warning _me."  
  
"You're welcome," he said cheekily. Then he became slightly more serious. "Take a minute to warm up, get used to it. I'm going to get the equipment," he said, and shot off toward the other end of the pitch.  
  
Sianna tested the wood and magic underneath her. Her fingers pushed the right side of the handle with barely the lightest pressure, and the broom rotated left. She gathered her energy and nudged forward slightly, and it moved ahead at just the right speed. All it took was a _thought_, and the broom would respond. It accelerated and slowed like a dream, turned on a dime, did everything Sianna wanted it to do. None of the jerking, drifting, or bucking that the school brooms enjoyed tormenting their riders with. The Nimbus felt like a sports car—it _wanted _to go fast.  
  
Sianna glanced down, and, seeing Draco dragging a trunk and bending to unlatch it, she threw all her weight forward and down, free falling at a mind-boggling pace. She pulled up with all her strength about twenty feet off the ground and glided down as gracefully as she could, her hair still flying in all directions. Her feet hit the ground rather forcefully, as she had not quite mastered landing, but she kept her balance.  
  
Draco waved her over to the open trunk, which contained four balls. "Has anyone ever explained this to you?" he asked, referring to the rules of Quidditch.  
  
"Yeah, once. I think I pretty much know what that stuff is," she said, gesturing at the equipment.  
  
"Right then," Draco said, thinking about how to approach the lesson. He remembered the way Snape had taught him years ago, and decided to start with the Quaffle first.  
  
"Here," he said, tossing the worn, red ball to Sianna. "We'll just practice throwing and catching for now." They started on the ground, and as Sianna grew more comfortable with the heft of the ball, they mounted their brooms and began the exercise again in the air. Sianna thought she would never be able to get it right...she was having trouble remembering that she could go up and down as well as left and right to catch the Quaffle. After quite a while of no visible improvement, Draco gave up and moved on.  
  
"You've seen a Bludger before, I hope," he said, taking out the tough little Beater's clubs.  
  
"Uh...no."  
  
"Wonderful," he said sarcastically. "Well then you might want to watch yourself. And keep that club raised," he warned.  
  
Sianna was prepared for something like and explosion from the way Draco referred to the softball-sized spheres, and was a little disappointed when he kicked the latch open and the one ball he let out merely flew away.  
  
"That was a little anticlimactic," she sighed, lowering her club.  
  
"Watch it, it's coming back," Draco said, eye trained on the quickly growing black dot.  
  
Sianna glanced up and did a double take. "Just kidding," she said, and picked her club back up, instinctively holding it in the ready position she would use on a tennis court. The ball, which she could now tell was very heavy and dangerous, aimed directly at Draco's head and hurtled downward at a frightening speed.  
  
The action passed so quickly that Sianna hardly saw what happened. All she remembered was Draco's arm moving and the Bludger changing direction with a solid, wood-on-iron crack.  
  
"Holy shit," Sianna cursed in amazement as the Bludger rocketed away and began its boomerang back to the ground.  
  
"I told ya, didn't I?"  
  
This time, the ball headed toward Sianna, but now she was prepared for its effect. Draco saw where it was going and tried to intercept (always the macho gentleman), but Sianna pulled her club back first and slammed into the speeding Bludger, sending it straight up to the goalposts.  
  
Draco looked at her, impressed. "That was pretty good," he said. "Where'd you learn to hit like that?"  
  
"Like what?" Sianna asked. She didn't think she'd done anything particularly special.  
  
"Like—"Draco started, but the Bludger was coming back. Sianna sent it flying off to the other end of the field again.  
  
"Like this," Draco finished, mimicking Sianna's swing.  
  
"That's just what people do when they play tennis...well, it's a little bit like baseball, too, I guess," she said.  
  
"Are those more Muggle sports?" Draco asked with exasperation.  
  
"Yeah," Sianna said a little sheepishly.  
  
Draco shook his head and wondered, "I just don't understand why a respectable young witch like you would bother to know all those silly things." He swung his club again at the Bludger, which had been making its way back towards them. When it was gone again, he suggested, "Let's get up in the air and you can try this on a broom."  
  
The practice continued very well for a while. It seemed that Sianna had the makings of a naturally talented Beater, and she happily sent the Bludger zig-zagging all over the pitch. Before long, she and Draco got into a bit of a competition. The game became a little rough as each tried to aim for the other whenever the ball came their way. Sianna was by no means Draco's match—it was her first time playing Quidditch, after all—but there was no doubt that she was dangerous with a club in her hand and a Bludger in the sky.  
  
"Take _that!" _she screamed sadistically as she launched little ball at Draco's head. He ducked just in time and swore, waiting for the Bludger to come back around so he could take his turn. He yelled with as much effort as rage as his swing sent it reeling back towards his opponent, who easily evaded the badly aimed shot. "You shouldn't let your anger get to you like that, you know," she teased, laughing.  
  
"If you're not careful, Castell, I get down there and take out the other Bludger!" he threatened. "Then we'll see who's the Quidditch player!"  
  
"Go on, I dare you!" she yelled in reply, not about to relinquish her pride.  
  
"You asked for it," he said as he dove back to the ground, bypassing the comparatively slow Bludger as he went. He landed and quickly released the Bludger's twin, then mounted and shot back up before he could get hit. Both of the balls were trained on him as he regained his elevation. He knocked one in Sianna's direction, but he could not twist himself to aim the other at her, so he just defended himself as best he could. The second Bludger ended up above the stands before it slowed enough to change direction.  
  
The game intensified ten-fold with the extra challenge. There was never a dull moment for either of the players as they attacked and defended with vigor. Sianna was starting to tire, though, her arms unused to the extensive exercise and her mind unaccustomed to the level of concentration needed for the game. Her swings started to go wide and her reaction time slowed, but she refused to be the one to call a halt to the competition.  
  
Draco could see that Sianna was running out of strength. He now easily avoided the majority of her shots, and she was having a harder time blocking his. He was just wondering whether they should stop when he saw something that made his eyes bulge in fear.  
  
"Sianna, _behind you!" _he screamed, his voice cracking with the effort.  
  
Sianna, who was focused on the Bludger headed straight for her, could not turn to look without losing sight of her target and possibly getting hit. She froze, suddenly unable to choose between defending herself from the front or the back. The approaching Bludger forced her to take action, though, as she had no time to avoid it before it reached her. She swung at it with barely enough energy to send it away, and only then could she turn to look behind her. She twisted her head over her shoulder and—  
  
SMACK.  
  
Draco heard it loud and clear from thirty feet away. He had frozen at first, but seeing that Sianna could not defend herself from both Bludgers at once, he raced towards her—too late. The second Bludger hit her from above and behind, soundly nailing her left side.  
  
Sianna cried out in shock and pain, but miraculously managed to hold on to her broom, which began spiraling slowly downward. Draco caught up with her about twenty feet above the ground. She was stooped over her broom handle, clutching her arm and breathing frantically. A cut on her cheek was already beginning to swell.  
  
"Shh, I've got you," he assured her as he steadied her broom and brought them to a safe landing. Once on the ground, her feet would not support her, and she crumpled weakly before Draco's arm found her waist and hoisted her back up.  
  
He heard a malicious swoosh of air behind him and whirled to see one of the Bludgers approaching again. He gently set Sianna down on the grass, cringing as she whimpered in pain, and steadied himself for the impact of the ball. He grunted as it slammed into his arms, but he managed to pin it down and shove it back into the trunk before the other one came. After he had secured both Bludgers, he helped Sianna stand up again.  
  
"Are you alright?" he asked, feeling a wave concern and guilt as he realized that his recklessness was responsible for her injury.  
  
She bit her lip and shook her head, holding back the tears that threatened to spill from her pained eyes. She tried to open her mouth, but no words would come out. Draco nodded knowingly...he had always thought it more honorable to bear pain in silence than speak and let the tears fall.  
  
As they hobbled along, he said reassuringly, "It's okay, we're going to the hospital wing...you'll be just fine, Madam Pomfrey will get you fixed up in no time."  
  
As they neared the front steps, Professor Sprout came dashing out to them, hands over her mouth in concern.  
  
"Oh, dear, I saw the whole thing happen from the greenhouses, is she okay? Do you need help? Oh, she's bleeding!" she said in horror, pointing at Sianna's shirt, which was sanguine from the blood that had dripped from her bitten lip and cut cheek.  
  
"Could you just run and tell Madam Pomfrey that we're coming?" Draco asked.  
  
"Yes of course," she said, shuffling away to the hospital wing. "Be careful with her!"  
  
Sianna groaned. The fire in her shoulder and collarbone was more agony than she could bear; the mere weight of her arm increased the pain to such a degree that she wished she could just cut it off and be done with it. She could feel the blood rushing out of her face and the sweat breaking out all over her body. The salt trickled into her eyes and ran down her cheeks, stinging like needles under her torn skin. Her feet dragged up the stairs with fatigue, and she stumbled more than once, each jolt making her want to scream. She cringed and kept silent.  
  
She wished she could just collapse, but they were only halfway to the hospital wing. She concentrated as much of her mind as she could on the stones beneath her feet. The pain was so distracting, but if she could just remember to put one foot in front of the other, keep breathing...  
  
And they finally made it. Draco handed Sianna off with relief, letting Madam Pomfrey do her job as no one else could. He could barely bring himself to watch as she treated the facial cut with stinging disinfecting potions and attempted to relocate the splintered and misplaced bones. At some point the other professors entered the ward, but Draco never noticed. He was too busy watching Sianna twist in tired pain...pain that _he_, essentially, had caused...


	8. The Letter

AN: This was _not _supposed to take so long! I swear, I finished this at least a week ago, but something got screwed up with ff.net and it wouldn't let me log into my account. Long story short, I had to wait forever for them to fix it so I could post again. The next chapter is almost done though, so you won't have to wait too long this time. This one's not as long as the others, I know, but the tone changed between this and the next part was so jolting that I decided to separate it. Well, here's the next bit. Enjoy!  
  
Chapter Eight: The Letter  
  
"And the verdict?" Dumbledore asked upon his return to the hospital ward. He looked down at a pale and sleeping Sianna, the sparkle nearly faded from his already troubled eyes.  
  
Madam Pomfrey looked up from the chart she was filling out. "A dislocated shoulder, shattered collarbone, and various cuts and bruises. It's a miracle that she managed to stay on the broom at all! The moment that Bludger hit, her left arm would have been rendered entirely useless...this could have turned out much worse," she said, sending an accusing glare at Draco, who was keeping vigilance beside Sianna's bed.  
  
Dumbledore sighed and sat heavily next to him. Draco nodded in greeting and looked up at Madam Pomfrey, who was still writing busily and asked suddenly, "What is all that?"  
  
"All _what_?" she asked irritably in return, not seeing that he was gesturing to her clipboard.  
  
"Those forms you're filling out," he explained.  
  
"These are just general medical records. I have one on file for every student," she said proudly, putting down the clipboard and walking over to one of the many cabinets full of medicines, potions, and salves. She rummaged around for a minute, but apparently did not find what she was looking for.  
  
She pulled her head out of the cupboard and looked around. "Now where did Professor Snape get off to?" she wondered aloud.  
  
"I believe he returned to the dungeons several minutes ago," Dumbledore informed her. "Do you need something?"  
  
"I'm just wondering if he happens to have any Rhesus Determination Solution on hand in his stores. Miss Castell needs a dose of Bone Marrow Restorative, but I have to know if she's Rh positive or negative before I give it to her," Madam Pomfrey explained. Bone Marrow Restorative had to be brewed in a slightly different manner for each type of blood, and while Madam Pomfrey could tell with a simple spell that Sianna had type O blood, she did not know whether that was O-positive or O-negative, and could only find out with the potion.  
  
"I'll go ask him," Draco volunteered, tired of sitting and sick of the hospital wing in general. A walk would do him good, and it would get him out of the way of Madam Pomfrey's scolding glances.  
  
Before anyone could protest, he was out of the hospital wing and on his way to the dungeons, walking briskly to stretch his coltishly long legs. He checked Professor Snape's classroom, office, and chambers before finally locating the man in his private lab. The door was closed, but there was light shining through the gap above the floor and the distinct sound of boot heels clicking within. Draco knocked twice in rapid succession and waited. He knew from experience that the professor would never answer the knock himself, but would merely command the door to open on its own. Just as Draco had predicted, the door swung inward a moment later to reveal Snape searching his shelves for some unknown substance, three separate cauldrons behind him boiling and smoking over meticulously controlled flames.  
  
"Can I help you, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked silkily, still facing his shelves. He turned slowly and gazed at his pupil expectantly.  
  
"Sir, Madam Pomfrey wants to know if you have any Rhesus Determination Solution in your stores," Draco said, standing as straight as a board, his hands linked behind his back in respect.  
  
Snape let out his breath in an annoyed huff, shaking his head at the woman's folly. That potion took weeks to make and could not be stored for more than two months before combined with a person's blood, besides the fact that one very rarely found occasion to use it at all. There was only one function of the substance, and the draft was not widely known, even in the potions community.  
  
"Of course I do not have any. What could she possibly need it for?" he asked.  
  
"She wants to know Sianna's blood type, or something like that, so she can prepare a dose of Bone Marrow Restorative," Draco explained.  
  
Snape sighed. "Go tell her that I cannot help unless the case is so desperate that she is willing to wait a number of weeks for access to the potion," he said with finality. As Draco turned to deliver the message, he added, "Might I suggest an owl to Miss Castell's parents? If anyone knows her Rh factor, it would be them."  
  
"Yes, sir," Draco said, and left the room. He had absolutely no inkling of what an "Rh factor" was, but he was notoriously good at pretending to know everything.  
  
When he related Professor Snape's words, Madam Pomfrey turned deferentially to Dumbledore. "Well?" she asked. "Is that what you wish?"  
  
Dumbledore remained thoughtful for a moment, rapidly calculating distances and times. If it would take weeks to send the letter and receive a return, was the journey even worth it?  
  
"Is it not true that Sianna has only two days to take the potion?" he asked. "Wait any longer, and it will have little effect, if I am not mistaken."  
  
"Yes, that is true," Madam Pomfrey conceded, "but that shoulder of hers really will be in bad shape if she does not get this potion, Albus. Her bones will be much stronger and less likely to break again if she gets a dose they heal completely."  
  
Draco interrupted, "I thought you always said you could mend bones in a minute, why should it take two days anyway?"  
  
Madam Pomfrey looked down at him condescendingly. "Little cracks and things take very little effort, but this case is just a _little bit _more extreme," she said. "I can put the bones are back in place quickly, yes, but they need _time _to set properly and a bit more than a simple incantation to sew them back together."  
  
An indignant Draco succeeded in appearing satisfied with that answer, which annoyed Madam Pomfrey to no end (as was intended). She had never been fond of the boy; he was such a whiny patient, always _in pain _or _hungry _or _thirsty_. Thank goodness he rarely got himself bloodied up enough to come to the hospital wing.  
  
"More on the subject..." Dumbledore interjected firmly, "We cannot send an owl to the Castells, that would take nearly as much time as it would to brew the Rhesus Determination Solution. The only alternative is to have Severus apparate there to communicate with them and obtain the necessary information. Will that leave you enough time for you, Poppy?" he asked considerately.  
  
"Yes, Albus, thank you very much," she replied sincerely. Dumbledore nodded and left the room, presumably headed for the dungeons.

* * *

Snape stepped out of the bush beside the Castells' house, his blackest scowl fixed upon his face, and brushed the clinging twigs and leaves off his robes. His infamous sneer threatened to engulf all other facial characteristics as he strode swiftly around the house to the front door and knocked firmly. He waited what seemed to him an unreasonably excessive amount of time, and was about to knock again when a flustered looking teenage girl burst out of the adjacent room and reached for the doorknob, breathing heavily.  
  
Elise started to pull the door open but stopped suddenly, recognizing the strange man that had come to get her sister earlier that month. She unfroze and cautiously swung the door in all the way, saying "Uh, hello. You can come in, I'll get Mom and Dad." She showed him to the same living room he had visited that first time and disappeared again. Snape could hear her feet pounding up the stairs. Only moments later, he heard several more pairs pounding back down.  
  
Helena and John Castell stopped in the doorway of the living room, then Helena rushed forward and sat opposite Snape. John followed more slowly asking nervously, "Is she okay?"  
  
It occurred to Snape that these poor parents were probably terrified for the safety of their daughter. How many reasons could there be for an unexpected visit from school personnel?  
  
"Sianna is fine, just fine. A little banged up, but she's perfectly okay," he reassured them, trying to gloss over the whole Bludger ordeal without lying overmuch.  
  
"_Banged up? _What do you mean _banged up_?" Helena asked, suddenly angry.  
  
Snape sighed. "She got into a bit of an accident and broke a few bones—but, let me remind you, Hogwarts is home to a _very able _mediwitch who can _easily _heal those kinds of injuries," he said impatiently. "That is not why I am here."  
  
Helena exhaled hugely and leaned back into the couch. "So what has she done now?"  
  
"She hasn't _done _anything." Why were these two so obsessively suspicious of their daughter? "We just need some medical information for her student record," Snape explained. "We were wondering if you could tell us whether she has O-positive or O-negative blood."  
  
John looked at Helena and said lightly, "I didn't know you had type-O blood."  
  
"What?" Helena asked in confusion. "I don't. I'm A-positive."  
  
John's forehead creased in a perplexed scowl and his eyes darted from side to side. "I always thought that a person's blood had to be the same as one of their parents. Oh well, I guess I must be mistaken," he said.  
  
Now Snape was confused. "No, that's right, a child inherits one of their parents' blood types. Are you telling me that neither of you has type-O blood?"  
  
The two parents nodded, foreheads creased in confusion. Then sudden comprehension dawned on Helena's face. She looked at John strangely and said with quiet desperation, "John, I thought we sorted this all out that day at the hospital...?"  
  
"What?" he asked, obviously not following.  
  
"Don't you remember? The—mix up?" she reminded him.  
  
"Oh God, Helena, you don't really think this has anything to do with that," he responded incredulously.  
  
"What if it does?" John put his head in his hand and rubbed his temples in slow, firm circles.  
  
Snape's eyes shifted from one to the other, and he suggested, "Perhaps I should leave you two alone for a minute..." He rose from his chair and went into the kitchen to wait.  
  
All he could hear for quite some time was murmuring voices from the next room. Then all became quiet as John and Helena entered the kitchen and reseated themselves around the table. Snape, who had no idea what was going on, just waited for one of them to start explaining. After a minute, John began to speak.  
  
"Helena had a hard labor with Sianna," he began. Snape could not fathom what that had to do with anything, but he listened attentively anyway. "I didn't get there until after she was born, so I don't know how the whole situation got started, and Helena passed out just after she gave birth, so she says she doesn't know either..." He paused, taking a deep, steeling breath.  
  
"Somehow, the doctors got it all mixed up," he blurted. "First they said that Sianna was stillborn, that she hadn't made it...then they said they made a mistake, that it was actually the woman in the next room whose baby had died, and—"he explained as best he could, his hands flailing in a flustered effort to convey his point.  
  
Helena picked the story up from there, touching her husband's arm gently to calm him down. "It took hours to finally figure out what was going on. In the end, they told us that both the lady in the next room and her child had died, and that our baby was okay. No one seemed to know how the doctors had come to that conclusion, but...we were just so happy that Sianna was alright that we didn't bother to ask too many questions. I guess we should have," she said with a tired regret.  
  
Snape tried to get the whole story organized. He finally came to the only conclusion he could imagine, however bizarre, and summed tentatively, "So...there is a possibility that Sianna isn't actually yours?"  
  
Helena nodded, eyes unfocused. John just let his head fall back into his hands.  
  
Snape inhaled deeply and asked the first practical question that came to mind. "Is there a way you can check the blood type?"  
  
Helena nodded wordlessly again and exited the room.  
  
"I just can't believe this happened, you know? How could we have made mistake like that?" John despaired. "Stuff like this isn't supposed to actually happen..."  
  
Snape, having never cared for anyone as a parent might, could not understand John's thoughts or feelings at that moment.  
  
"It's not so bad as you are making it out to be. Sianna may have your blood or she may not," he reasoned, "but either way, she is still your daughter. You _are _the only father she's ever known." It was the only thing he could think to say, but John seemed to take comfort in that logic nonetheless.  
  
"You don't think she'll be mad?" he whispered fearfully.  
  
"I have no idea what your daughter will think of this. You're going to have to find out for yourself," Snape told him as Helena reentered the kitchen.  
  
"You were right," Helena sighed as she sank back into her chair. "I've just checked Sianna's medical records—she's O-negative. It was right there...how could we have not noticed before?"  
  
The room was silent for a long moment before Snape asked, "Do you want me to tell her?" The offer was met with silence. "Or you could write her a letter..." he suggested.  
  
"That's a good idea," Helena agreed. "John? Is a letter okay?" John nodded and Helena went to a drawer and pulled out paper and a pencil. She walked slowly back to the table and sat gingerly, placing the paper squarely in front of her and twirling the pencil in her fingers. "How do we start?" she wondered.  
  
John and Helena took the better part of an hour to compose the letter, and Snape was extraordinarily bored by the time they finished. He had been sympathetic, allowing them as much time as they needed, but he really did need to get back to the castle...  
  
"You'll make sure she gets this?" John asked, his voice laced with concern.  
  
Snape nodded solemnly and took the folded letter from his hand and gave them one last apologetic look before he apparated away.

* * *

The darkness slowly ebbed away from Sianna's consciousness, and she was aware of light sneaking through her eyelids and the padding of soft-soled shoes somewhere nearby. A fuzzy blanket of some unknown material warmed her still sleepy body, and she curled up with a deep breath, fully intent on falling back into slumber. But a subtle tug of sore muscles surprised her eyes open, and she became aware of a bothersome tenseness in her left shoulder. She turned onto her back and squinted at the offensively bright morning sun that filled the—hospital wing? The events of the previous day came rushing back.  
  
She sat up and blinked, massaging her left shoulder tenderly. Madam Pomfrey approach concernedly, bottle and goblet in hand. To anyone who had ever been force-fed medicine, it was an ominous picture.  
  
"Nice to see you're up, dearie," she said maternally. "Here now, drink this and you'll be feeling much better."  
  
Sianna eyed the cup warily and croaked, "What is it?"  
  
"It's just some Bone Marrow Restorative, it'll help you with those broken bones. Drink up," she encouraged. Sianna cringed and inhaled deeply, regretting the inevitability of it all and wondering what the point of being magical was if you couldn't even avoid taking medicine. At least they could make it taste good...Sianna attempted to gulp the entire potion at once, but only got half down her throat before the expected stench forced her to draw the cup away from her face and gag.  
  
"Blech," she said, wrinkling her nose disdainfully and scraping her tongue against her teeth in disgust. "That's gross," she stated bluntly.  
  
"What did you expect? Go on, finish it. Half a dose will do you no good," Pomfrey chided.  
  
Sianna sighed, face still scrunched in revolt, and looked down at the remaining contents of the goblet, her eyebrows threatening to disappear into her hairline. She sat up a little straighter and plugged her nose with her free hand, glancing one last time at the potion before closing her eyes and tossing the liquid back as quickly as possible. Three choking gulps later, she slammed the goblet down on the table beside her and coughed dryly.  
  
"Can I have some water?" she squeaked at Madam Pomfrey's back.  
  
"Of course, dear," she responded.  
  
Sianna was just finishing her enormously refreshing glass of water when Draco entered the ward. Madam Pomfrey had kicked him out at about dinnertime the day before, saying—or screaming, to be entirely honest—that if he something useful to do, he should do it and leave. Having no excuse, he had left the argument for useless and gone back to his own room. Now he was back to see how whether Sianna was awake, and to tell her about the letter Snape had left by her bed the day before.  
  
"Hey," he said awkwardly as he sprawled in the chair beside the bed. "How's your shoulder?"  
  
"It's okay," Sianna said vaguely. At a look from Draco she added, "It's a little sore, but it certainly doesn't feel quite so broken anymore."  
  
"Yes, well that is the idea of mending bones," Madam Pomfrey interrupted sarcastically, approaching Sianna again. She flitted her wand about for a moment, taking a last set of readings before saying, "You're free to go, Miss Castell. But keep off that arm for a day or two, no lifting, nothing more strenuous than writing."  
  
"I'm right handed," Sianna reminded her.  
  
"Well then you have nothing to worry about, do you?" she responded, returning to her office.  
  
Sianna stretched her neck and looked about for her clothes. "Could you hand me that, Draco?" she asked, pointing to the pile of black cloth on the shelf below the table.  
  
He bent and retrieved it, then stood up and asked, "I'll meet you in the Great Hall, then?"  
  
"Sure. I'm starving," she realized. "See you in a minute," she said, getting up to close the curtain.  
  
"Oh wait, I nearly forgot. Snape had to go to your house last night and talk to your parents. He brought that back, it's for you," Draco said, gesturing at the white paper on the table.  
  
Sianna looked at it curiously, then shrugged and said, "Thanks." She drew the curtain and dressed in the school robes, taking a minute to figure out just how they were meant to be worn. On her way out, she grabbed the letter and thanked Madam Pomfrey, then headed on to the Great Hall.  
  
She sat next to Draco in the nearly empty Great Hall—most of the professors had finished breakfast long ago. The two ate in voracious silence for a minute, but when the edge was taken off their appetites, a conversation began.  
  
"So did I miss anything exciting yesterday after I zonked out on you guys?" Sianna asked, swallowing a bite of toast.  
  
Draco thought back to the previous afternoon and said, "Not really. I think I'm officially on Madam Pomfrey's hit list for letting you get hurt..." (Sianna laughed at that) "but really everything went pretty smoothly. Professor Snape had to go tell your parents what happened and ask them some stuff that Madam Pomfrey wanted to know, but that's pretty much it."  
  
"It's so weird to think that yesterday my collarbone was broken and today I'm fine," Sianna thought out loud. "I mean, last time I broke a bone I had to wear a cast for six weeks."  
  
Draco looked at her strangely. "What for?"  
  
Sianna's breath halted for a second as she realized that she had slipped yet again. "Um, we were camping," she lied. "There weren't any doc—erm, Healers anywhere."  
  
Draco didn't look too convinced, but he went back to his meal. Sianna, trying to steer the conversation away from dangerous waters, wondered suddenly, "So what's this letter all about?"  
  
Draco shrugged. "Dunno," he said. He had been about to leave the ward the night before when Snape had entered, traditional black robes billowing and paper clutched in hand.  
  
_"Make sure Sianna gets this," _he'd said. _"It's a very important letter from her parents." _Draco remembered eyeing the letter with sneaky curiosity before glancing back at his godfather, all innocence. Snape, not missing the expression on his godson's face, had said wearily, _"Don't bother. You'll find out soon enough." _After that, Draco had abandoned the thought of opening the letter himself, but when Sianna brought it up again at breakfast, he found himself wondering still about its contents.  
  
Sianna carefully unsealed the envelope and pulled the letter out, reading at first with only vague interest. Soon, though, her expression began to change. Her face turned steadily from curiosity to confusion and disbelief, and Draco could only watch as she closed her eyes for a long moment, then stood abruptly and exited the Great Hall calmly and quickly, without explanation. 


	9. Harsh Realities

AN: I know this one is a little short again, but it's crammed with a lot of emotion, so maybe that makes up for it. Anyway, here's the next bit, enjoy!  
  
Chapter Nine: Harsh Realities  
  
Sianna felt sick, as if the harsh truth of her birth had invaded her digestive system and rolled her breakfast into a lump that churned grossly in her stomach.  
  
Her steadily moving feet took her outside, right up to the edge of the lake and stopped abruptly. They slipped out of her sandals, nudging them safely onto the dry grass behind her, and squished into the muddy sand of the bank. The refreshing chill of the water pulled Sianna out of her blank reverie and triggered countless memories of family outings to the Pacific beaches of home. She could almost see Helena with a little girl attached to each hand dancing in and out of the relentless waves amid shrieks of laughter. She shook her head to rid herself of the thought, once wonderfully bright but now slightly disconcerting, even saddening.  
  
Her legs trudged heavily through the shin-deep water, traveling in endless circles in both reality and in her mind. 'You're an _orphan!_' she yelled at herself, staring at the clouding sky. 'You don't _have _parents, they _don't exist_,' her mind screamed. It wasn't necessarily true, but she couldn't help it; she just kept throwing the worst possible scenarios at herself, masochistically branding at the front of her mind.  
  
She pictured her mother and father as she remembered them best, Helena in her ripped and paint-stained work clothes and John in an impeccable business suit, and thought of their real baby, the one they had lost. Sianna was not that beloved child. She was nothing but a replacement, stolen from her dead mother and given to one still living, a patch ripped from fabric torn and stained beyond repair and sewn onto the inside of a family to make it whole again. Was that not something to be angry over?  
  
Another piece of her confused and divided mind argued that the whole disastrous mix-up had been for the best, at least for her. 'Would you rather have never known a mother?' it asked cruelly. 'Would you rather see your family mourning a lost child instead of celebrating a healthy one? Is that what you _want?_' She didn't know anymore.  
  
Sianna wished desperately that it would all just stop, that she could halt her train of thought and just jump off into a clean world without sentience and pain. But she couldn't...no matter how hard she concentrated on the good things, her treacherous mind disrupted her calm with reminders that all was not okay. She had thought the entire ordeal into a hole, too deep to climb out of, so deep that no one would see her hiding, torn and nearly schizophrenic, at the bottom.  
  
She stepped out of the lake and plopped onto the prickling grass with mental exhaustion, letting herself fall back into the slope of the ground. Her frustration with herself was translating into watery eyes and self- loathing, but she would not cry. Only the weak and the young let their tears fall, and she was neither.  
  
Sianna sat up suddenly and jumped at the sound of her name. She looked across the water and saw Draco standing beside the lake, her sandals in his hand. His eyes landed on her and he began to walk around the edge of the water, obviously eager to inquire about her earlier behavior. Revolting and infinitely annoying memories of former friends whining, "What's _wrong?" _flashed through her head, and she hopped onto her feet, looking around for somewhere, anywhere that she could go to find privacy. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Draco what was "wrong," friend or not.  
  
She spotted a grove of trees where the muddy beach ended and the cliffs began, and she automatically began sprinting for it. Her long legs made her a naturally quick and agile runner, and her feet were conditioned to the rough terrain by a lifetime of barefooted adventures through the beaches and tide pools of the coast. Draco started to run after her, but thought the better of it. He stopped and watched her disappear into the trees, her shoes dangling in his fingers. He looked at them, almost surprised to remember that he had picked them up, and shrugged in resignation. He turned back to the castle and sighed, then began walking back.  
  
Sianna finally stopped when she realized that her footsteps were the only set she could hear—no one followed. She looked around and was relieved to see that her blind flight reaction had not taken her into unfamiliar territory, out of sight of the lake. She lingered a moment, catching her breath and bearings. A twisted, ground-brushing tree caught her eye, and she approached it languidly, making as little noise as possible as her feet crushed the dead leaves that carpeted the earth. Her fingers brushed lightly against the chipping, lichen-covered bark, and she hoisted herself one-armed onto the lowest branch. She stood precariously, testing the stability of the thick, wiry limbs, and, satisfied with their integrity, climbed higher. She grabbed branch after branch, pulling herself up messily with only her right arm, ascending as high as she dared. On the highest of the large branches, she sat, leaning her back against the trunk and dangling her legs on either side. She sighed again and closed her eyes, trying to feel the wind that she knew rose off the lake, now buffered by the trees to only the tiniest of breezes. The interruption of her thoughts had only pulled her halfway out of the well, and as her mind returned to the letter, she felt herself slipping down further back by the moment.  
  
Sianna cursed her indecision and the warring thoughts that plagued her. Why could she not just have one train of thought, one belief, one opinion? Did she always have to scrutinize every facet of every piece of information, weigh the rights and wrongs, linger on the cons of everything? Yes, she admitted, she did. It was her nature to vacillate over the smallest of choices, had been as long as she could remember. It was the reason she was never religious, could never please her parents by going to church or joining a youth group. She just could not bring herself to choose between beliefs; she agreed with pieces from many religions, not just one.  
  
She sat up and inhaled a deep breath of the terrene forest air. It calmed her and begged her to relax, to clear her mind and start again. The bark scratched the palms of her hands as she slowly but surely made her way back down the tree, sticking close to the trunk and steadying herself with her weakened left arm. Her legs bent when she dropped to the ground, absorbing the impact.  
  
After all that time, she only ended up back at the very first thought that had occurred to her: what difference did it really make? Her parents, whether related by blood or not, would still consider her their daughter. They'd said so in the letter. Why should anything change?  
  
Deep down, she didn't honestly believe that, but it was the best thing she could think of, and by that point she just did not care whether it was true or not.

* * *

Draco was disappointed that he had not been privy to the contents of the obviously upsetting letter. He'd gone after Sianna to ask her about it, but she didn't seem any more inclined to share than she had been earlier, so he'd given up. Of course, the thought of offering some sort of consolation had crossed his mind, but he decided that it wasn't worth it; he'd probably just make her cry or something. When was the last time he'd talked to someone in that manner, as an honest, caring friend? _Um...how about never, _he laughed to himself. Not having true friends had never really bothered him, although perhaps it should have. What kind of Slytherin would he be if he couldn't make it in life on his own?  
  
He'd gone down to his room after the almost-encounter by the lake, but he was soon bored again, so he wandered over to the Potions room, where Professor Snape was working.  
  
Snape gave off the pretense that he had not noticed Draco's presence, but the boy knew better than to think that he could surprise the Potions Master.  
  
"Good morning, professor," he greeted.  
  
"It's hardly morning anymore," Snape answered snidely.  
  
Draco glanced at his watch and saw that indeed, it was nearly one o'clock. "I was just wondering if you needed any help, sir," Draco said, hoping to find something constructive to do. He always felt better when he spent his leisure time doing something worthwhile.  
  
Snape's eyes darted around, taking inventory, and landed on the table to his left. "Start preparing those," he ordered curtly. "The slug tails need to be thinly sliced and the parrot beaks should be powdered finely, but everything else gets chopped. Neatly, mind you," he specified.  
  
The two worked quietly for a few minutes, but Snape broke the silence when he asked, "Have you seen Miss Castell today?" He truly had not wished to voice the question (he didn't want to look like he actually cared or anything), but he was slightly concerned about the girl's reaction to her parents' revelation. He was decidedly not interested in a nervous breakdown during his class, or any other for that matter.  
  
"Yes, I had breakfast with her this morning," Draco said. Looking up at his godfather, he added, "She read the letter and ran off to the lake...no, she didn't seem too suicidal or anything, just upset." He was intelligent enough to infer the reasoning behind the inquiry, whether Snape had said it aloud or not. "What did it say, anyway?" he wondered, hoping to get his answer from Professor Snape.  
  
"That's for her to say. It's not your business unless she decides it is," Snape reminded Draco harshly.  
  
Draco turned his gaze back to his work, his curiosity still unsatisfied. It suddenly occurred to him that he was behaving just as Pansy Parkinson might: going from source to source, asking the same questions and hoping to come across information that really had nothing to do with him and wasn't his problem. When Pansy did it, he said she was a nosy gossip, but when he did it, he passed it off as "curiosity." Draco wrinkled his nose in self- disgust and wielded his knife with more determination.  
  
He could not, however, get his mind off Sianna. He found himself wanting to spend a disproportionate amount of his free time with her, not because he was really attracted to her, but more because she was—there was no better word for it—_fun_. Slytherin was never famous for spirited girls, at least not in his generation, and those in his year were much more likely to be found trying to seduce him than having even a halfway-meaningful conversation. Sianna didn't seem too interested in him, though, and maybe that was why he was so drawn to her.  
  
But she was always having those damn tutoring sessions. Every single _bloody _time he went looking for her, she was always in some teacher's classroom having lessons or in her room studying. In the middle of summer, for Merlin's sake! Surely America was not all that different. How many ways can a person learn to do magic?  
  
Draco suddenly noticed that his knife was still; there were no unprepared ingredients left on the cutting board. He showed Professor Snape, who nodded with grudging satisfaction before dismissing Draco from the room. Draco nodded and left, his head down in resignation. He had been hoping to stay and continue to aid the Potions professor, but one did not argue with Snape over such things.  
  
As he wandered lazily through the dungeons, taking an indirect route back to the Slytherin dormitories, he wondered if Sianna had come back to the castle yet. She was such a strange girl in some ways...why did so much of the wizarding world seem new to her? And she was always referencing Muggles, as if they mattered or something. Draco shrugged and supposed that American wizards were of a less pure culture, as they seemed to mingle shamelessly with lower class human beings.  
  
After arriving back at his rooms and finding, once again, absolutely nothing to do, he huffed discontentedly and marched right back out the concealed stone entryway, heading for the library. Maybe the Restricted Section would be unguarded during the holidays...  
  
Unfortunately, it was not. Madam Pince still roamed her precious aisles and trained her beady eyes on his every movement. It was really extraordinarily irritating.  
  
Draco worked his way silently to the other side of the room, where the less mundane books were kept, but he stopped halfway there when he saw a table full of open books and sheaves of notes, but no one sitting at it. _I guess Sianna is back, then, _he thought to himself. He wandered over to the table, intending to wait for the girl's return so he could speak to her, but the table's contents caught his eye and made him lean closer.  
  
_Standard Book of Spells, Grade One? _Notes on paralyzing charms? _But we did this in first year, _Draco thought. He was thoroughly confused, and more than a little suspicious.  
  
At that moment, Sianna turned a corner around the bookshelves and was horrified to see Draco leaning over her homework and reading with a befuddled look on his normally smug face.  
  
"What are you doing?" she asked rather angrily, stalking over and dropping her stack of books on top of the papers with a surprisingly loud _smack_.  
  
Draco almost let himself get apologetic before he remembered what he had seen. "What is all this, Sianna?" he asked disbelievingly. "We studied this in first year, it's simple, fundamental wizardry! What the bloody hell are you writing an essay on it for?!"  
  
Sianna was busily gathering her things and stuffing them into her rucksack. "What do you care?" she shot back. She was really not in the mood. "I told you, we learn things differently in the U.S.!"  
  
"Not this differently," Draco asserted, blocking Sianna's attempt to brush past him.  
  
"Get out of my way, Draco," she said with quiet force.  
  
"And what was with that letter?" he sneered. "It seemed pretty suspicious to me."  
  
Sianna's face fell, then turned into a disgusted scowl. "Did your mother never teach you to _mind your own fucking business?_" she spat, her voice rising in a crescendo. She knocked Draco's arm out of her way and shoved past him, seething in rage. What did _he _know about anything?  
  
"I'm going to find out," Draco called after her. "I'll figure out what going on here."  
  
"You do that," she retorted, banging out of the library. Draco stood, breathing heavily for a moment, then swept away, heading directly back down to the dungeons. If Sianna wouldn't tell him, somebody else would. He would have to be sneaky about it, but he would find her secret one way or another.

* * *

In the end, Draco decided that Professor Sprout would be the most likely to let information slip about Sianna. She was a Hufflepuff, after all. (That, and she was the only professor that he hadn't already asked.)  
  
When Draco knocked on the greenhouse door (which was open), Sprout's head popped up from the plant she was tending. She looked rather surprised, as Draco had never been fond of her class, and she welcomed the boy in with a gesture.  
  
"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked sincerely.  
  
Draco had the whole conversation planned out. "Actually, I was wondering, professor," he began, "if you could give me a bit of extra tutoring while I'm here...seeing as I didn't do very well in your class last year," he explained.  
  
Professor Sprout looked thoughtful, and Draco supposed that she was reviewing her schedule. Perfect. "I could just come with Sianna and we could have a session together. I mean, we are in the same year and all..." he suggested, knowing she would turn the offer down.  
  
"Oh dearie, that couldn't possibly work. You may not be my best student, but even so, your ability is far beyond that of Miss Castell," she said regretfully.  
  
"Really?" Draco asked, falsely curious. "How is that?" He was about to get his answer...  
  
Sprout went back to her plant and began feeding it again. "She didn't tell you?" she asked suspiciously.  
  
"Well, to tell you the truth, we haven't really gotten much of a chance to talk at all. She's always in class, you know," he said, hoping she would buy it.  
  
She did. "Oh, well you see nobody knew she was a witch until just this summer. Her parents are Muggles and everything, so of course they never would have suspected, and she never got invited to a school of magic because..." she paused for a second, as if recalling her memory. "I'm not sure I've got the story straight, but I think there was a kind of spell of some kind that concealed her presence, if I'm not mistaken. You should ask her, I'm sure she knows much better than I do."  
  
Draco was not as shocked as he was angry. And he'd actually liked that filthy piece of Muggle trash! He succeeded in keeping his facial expressions down to mildly surprised as he slowly backed towards the door.  
  
"Well, thank you for the explanation, professor. I guess we'll just have to find another time for that tutoring," he lamented, falsely disappointed.  
  
"Sure, dear. Just come to me when you need help," she offered.  
  
"Thanks," Draco said again before making his escape. He needed to find that Castell girl and talk to her about something.

* * *

The professors could all sense the underlying tension between Sianna and Draco at dinner the next night. Both teenagers were abnormally quiet, and Draco kept sending furtive glances at Sianna, who kept her gaze fixed rigidly on her dish. She was not eating. Draco would look at her hatefully then turn back to his food, shaking his head and stabbing at his meal angrily. The teachers tried to carry on with normal conversation, but even they could not ignore the situation entirely.  
  
Sianna remained at the table only the minimal amount of time before excusing herself quietly and leaving the room, her eyes strictly trained on the door. She would not escape so easily, though. Draco immediately followed her, his meal left unfinished on the table. The staff shared knowing looks, rolling their eyes at teenage drama. No one seemed to know the cause of the disturbance, and none cared to investigate.  
  
Draco sped up his pace, determined to confront Sianna before she disappeared off to wherever she slept. He caught up with her quickly, cornering her in a narrow and obscure little hallway on the second floor.  
  
When she felt the hand on her shoulder, Sianna felt the sudden urge to run and hide, but she pushed that aside and merely turned to stare at Draco with resigned annoyance. He thought she looked remarkably like Hermione at that moment. How odd. Then again, they were both mudbloods.  
  
_"Muggle-born?" _he said scornfully, sneering in disdain at the girl in front of him.  
  
"Do you have a problem, Mr. Malfoy?" Sianna asked politely.  
  
"Do I have a _problem?_" he repeated incredulously. "All this time, I have been associating with some filthy _mudblood _who can hardly perform the simplest of spells, who has been _lying _to me about—well, _everything_, and who _presumes _to be _on my level! _Now, why on earth would I have a problem with that?" he asked sarcastically, turning away and putting his hand on his hips. "I should have just let you fall off your damn broomstick," he mumbled.  
  
Sianna had been prepared to weather the storm without retorting, but that last comment struck a nerve.  
  
She scowled furiously. "How can you _possibly _expect _anyone _to tell you the truth when they know that all they'll get is a _racist bigot _yelling in their face about their goddamn blood?!" she shouted at his back.  
  
He turned and glared at her, red and seething. Before he could retort, she added quietly, "Makes you wonder how many others aren't telling you the truth, doesn't it?" Draco's face paled as he thought of his father.  
  
"Racist bigot, am I? When, I ask you, did race enter this discussion?" he wondered pompously, trying to shrug off that last remark.  
  
"If discriminating against people based on their background and parentage isn't racism, please tell me what is," she said reasonably.  
  
Draco looked as if she had just sprouted a second head. He had no answer to that.  
  
"That's what I thought," Sianna said with finality.  
  
"You don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about, bitch," he whispered, his teeth clenched in fury. "You haven't got a _clue _about what goes on in our world, do you? It's people like you that are killing us off, we're the ones who belong here. We've been here since the beginning, you Muggles have no right to come barging in and taking away everything we've built."  
  
"Is that what Daddy told you?" she asked scathingly. "From what I understand, the wizarding world wouldn't exist if not for _people like me_. You would all be dead from low birth rate and genetic mutation, because you would rather put up with incest than 'tainted blood.' Then what would happen to everything you've _built?_"  
  
Draco couldn't get a word in edgewise as Sianna continued her tirade, but even if he could, he was having trouble thinking of things to say. "And what _really _boggles my mind is how yesterday you would have followed me like a _dog _if you could, but suddenly you hate me because you know just a little bit more about what you're after—and get ready for this..._nothing has changed! _I. Have. Not. Changed. Wow, is that a revelation for you, Malfoy?" she asked, falsely amazed. "Did it never occur to you that judging people by their character instead of their parents might just be a good idea? That maybe you would have _friends _that way? I was your friend, now look what you've gone and started."  
  
Draco was slowly backing away, her well-aimed remarks chipping away at his protective wall. But for every step that he took backwards, she took another towards him. Why did everything she said have to be true? He hated her more than anything in that moment.  
  
"I don't give a flying fuck _who _your parents are," Sianna told him in complete honesty. She had Draco backed against the wall by this point, but he was too furious to notice. "But from the way you talk, maybe I should stay away from them. I mean, maybe they seems like great people to you, but from all the biased things I've heard you say, I'm thinking that their example may not be the one to follow." Draco wanted to smack her, but barely held his hand back. "I'd suggest you look elsewhere for a role model," she continued. "And during your search, do you think that maybe you should consider that blood isn't everything after all?" she sneered, her nose barely inches from his.  
  
"Shut _up!_" Draco screamed at her, finally cracking as he shoved away from the wall. "Just shut up. You have no idea what it's like to live with my father. He controls everything—do you understand that? _I have no choice!_" Draco yelled, close to tears. Sianna somehow knew all his weakest points, and she'd poked and prodded at them until he could take it no more.  
  
"You always have a choice," Sianna corrected him. Draco stared at her, breathing heavily and sweating as she walked away calmly and left him standing alone in the torch-lit hallway.

* * *

Sianna watched from the Astronomy Tower as Draco followed his father down the front steps and towards the gates of the school. A house elf bobbled behind, levitating Draco's bags. They had not spoken since the argument two days before before, and Sianna couldn't help but feel a tinge of regret for some of the things she had said. Her temper, which could be deceivingly calm and even, was volatile in situations like that, when her pride was likely to get the best of her. She could normally keep herself off the soapbox when someone tried to argue against her political views or morals, but last night had been an extreme exception. After living in America—the supposed land of the free—for so long, she was not about to let someone discriminate against her, especially over blood and heritage. Perhaps she had gone a little too far, though.  
  
So it was with sadness and a hint of relief that she watched Draco leave Hogwarts grounds. Perhaps, if any luck was with her, she had made him think for himself a bit, maybe even doubt the teachings of his family and past. She would know in September, when the term began again. 


	10. It's Not Easy, Turning People Green

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize (althogh I really wish I did). I all belongs to the glorious JRK, as we all know. And I don't own Gushers either.

Chapter Ten: It's Not Easy, Turning People Green  
  
The horseless coaches would pull up to the front gates any minute, and Sianna stood by a side door to the Great Hall awaiting their arrival. She looked no less serene than usual, but it was a struggle to remain that way. Not that there was anything to fear from hundreds of foreign strangers who new more spells than she could possibly dream of and had probably been learning magic since they could talk.  
  
Right. Nothing to be afraid of.  
  
She jumped out of her thoughts when the giant front doors ground open to reveal the excited voices of students fresh out of summer vacation and newly reunited with friends. She raised her head and pulled her shoulders back, standing tall in her undistinguished little corner, and sent a glance to Professor Dumbledore, who returned the look and nodded reassuringly. All the teachers were seated at the High Table except McGonagall, who, as was tradition, was supervising the Entrance Hall and would soon go to the docks to instruct the first years.  
  
The students entered the hall in a burst of identical black robes and a flurry of chatter. It was easy for Sianna to spot groups of friends sitting together, especially at the Gryffindor table. She sighed enviously and wished that she had a group to sit with...  
  
Fred and George caught her looking and sent mischievous winks her way. She smiled and winked in return, which could have been a mistake, as it seemed to cause a bit of confusion at the Gryffindor table. A red headed boy that looked oddly like the twins was arguing with a black-haired boy who wore glasses...  
  
"Honestly, would you two stop it?" Hermione nagged at Harry and Ron. "She wasn't winking at _either _of you—"  
  
"Yes she was, wasn't she, Fred?" Ron asserted, looking at his brother across the table for support.  
  
"Sure, mate. Course she was," George answered flippantly, looking oddly innocent.  
  
"Who is that?" asked Seamus Finnigan, who had just noticed the topic of conversation.  
  
"Dunno," Harry said.  
  
"Well she's a pretty one," he replied. This received nods and murmurs of agreement from the male occupants of the table. Harry craned his neck to look over at the girl again, but she wasn't watching, he saw with disappointment.  
  
"Oh come on, she's not that gorgeous," Hermione tried to reason (which, she ought to know, should never be attempted when dealing with excessive amounts of testosterone, as it is a catastrophic waste of energy and breath).  
  
"You're just saying that because you're jealous," Ron accused tactlessly.  
  
"I am not!" Hermione defended childishly, but at that moment, the double doors opened and a single, orderly line of strangely short eleven-year-olds moved through the Great Hall, most of the eyes cast upward in awe and amazement. Somehow, the first-years seemed to get smaller every year, and this year was the littlest yet. Hermione abandoned the argument as her attention turned to the front of the room.  
  
Sianna watched the line move closer with a fluttering stomach, knowing that she would be the first Sorted. But before the ceremony, there were two introductions to perform. Dumbledore stood and the hall quieted.  
  
"For those of you who were here two years ago, you will recognize our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin," he announced. Lupin stood in his place at the High table and received the torrential applause with a humble nod. Sianna smiled to see his popularity, and she joined the crowd in welcoming him as well.  
  
When the noise died back down, Dumbledore beckoned to Sianna, who approached with long, smooth strides and a forced calm about her.  
  
"And as you can see, we have a new student in our midst, as well as a new professor," he began obviously. "She has come here from her home in America and will be joining the fifth year class. So without further ado, I present to you..._Sianna Castell_," he said with a good bit more flare than was strictly necessary. His announcement was met with light applause, and Sianna had to exercise as surprising amount of restraint to keep from looking at Draco to see if he was clapping. She smiled shyly at the crowd, focusing on no one in particular, and ignored the obnoxious faces that the Weasley twins were pulling at her. She failed to notice the particularly loud applause that seemed to come from that section of the Gryffindor table.  
  
"And now...the Sorting Ceremony may begin," Dumbledore announced with a sweep of his hand.  
  
McGonagall gave the Sorting Hat a nod, and a long tear by the brim opened wide like a mouth and stretched a bit. The Hat inhaled hugely and began its long-practiced song describing the Hogwarts founders and their legacies. Amid all the explanations and planning, the professors had somehow neglected to mention that fact that the Hat could sing, but Sianna managed keep a straight face as she waited for the not-too-fine-voiced garment to finish its solo. When the applause quieted, the room became far too silent for Sianna's liking, and her shoes clicked sharply as she approached the three-legged stool nervously. McGonagall placed the hat gently on her head, and the professor's inscrutable visage was the last thing Sianna saw before the enormously wide brim blocked all view of the Hall (excepting the floor, of course).  
  
"Ah, It's seems we have a dash of everything in here, do we now?" said a tiny voice in her ear. "More brains than anyone could possibly need...and a good bit of ambition to go along with that. Want to be the best, do you? You'd do well in Slytherin...but Ravenclaw might be better, considering the circumstances," the Hat argued with itself.  
  
_Just put me where I'm supposed to go_, Sianna thought at it, hoping it would hear. It did.  
  
"Not everyone fits perfectly in one house, you know. You're a good challenge, haven't had one like you in years...nearly as bad as Harry Potter, you are. Now just quit fidgeting and sit still for a moment, I'm thinking," it commanded sternly.  
  
The blood rushed to Sianna's face, and her impatience flared violently.  
  
_Listen, Hat_, Sianna addressed the garment atop her head. _If you don't hurry up and just pick a goddam House, you're going to have a lot more to complain about than my fidgeting! _she warned.  
  
"Fine, then. I'll just put you in SLYTHERIN!" Sianna could her the last word shouted to the rest of the hall, and she sighed with relief as McGonagall reclaimed the Hat. Cheers and a raunchy wolf-whistle came from the table on her far right, with only very sparing applause from the rest of the room. Professor Snape pretended not to notice the goofy grin that she threw him on her way down to the table, one that innocently promised trouble on the horizon.  
  
Sianna sat by the side door of the hall and glanced down the length of the table, inadvertently catching Draco's eye. His look remained steely, and he did not break the stare until someone next to him tapped his shoulder. Sianna shook her head, half sad and half scornful, and turned to watch the rest of the Sorting.  
  
There were seven new additions to Slytherin (not including Sianna), the smallest number of any House, and the five new boys and two girls filled in at the end of the table, right beside Sianna. She groaned inwardly as she realized that she would be sharing the first meal of term with the rather frightening bloke on her right and the gaggle of eleven-year-olds that occupied all other sides. Sadly, it didn't leave much room for conversation, and it was a relief to get down to the dormitories after the meal. She already missed the engaging discussions of the professors seated at the High Table.  
  
She entered her new, rectangular dungeon room tiredly, only to see that the five others she would share it with were already there, unpacking their trunks and gossiping like the teenage girls they were. When they noticed the new occupant, though, they all turned towards the door and fell silent, one of them glaring hatefully at the intruder and the rest either curious or indifferent.  
  
Sianna, taken aback by the sudden hostility, held the staring contest for one confused moment before she remembered to relax. _Be cool, be calm, _she told herself.  
  
"Hello," she said nervously.  
  
For one tense moment, no one replied. Then one girl, looking to her companions in slight amazement at their lack of manners, rolled her eyes and approached Sianna, hand held out in greeting.  
  
"I'm Katherine Pritchard," the girl introduced graciously. She had the odd sort of hazel eyes that seemed to change colors even as you looked at them, and her obviously well cared-for chestnut curls framed her oval face well. Just by looking, Sianna could tell that Katherine was the type of girl that placed a good bit of importance on decorum and appearance.  
  
"Nice to meet you, Katherine. I'm Sianna," she replied, "but you already knew that."  
  
Katherine smiled and turned to introduce her housemates. The glaring girl was Pansy Parkinson, a blonde with a pug-nosed face and squinty, jealous eyes. Sianna tried to smile nicely at her, but she received only a reluctant nod in return. Abigail Monroe, an extremely short, fierce-looking brunette, stood next to Sally-Anne Perks, a girl with very closely cropped, dirty blonde hair, a plain face, and an entirely bored expression. The last girl, Millicent Bulstrode, had muscles about as big as the ones on that huge boy that had sat beside Sianna at dinner, although she didn't she appear quite as threatening. None of them were exactly friendly in their greetings, but they were nevertheless more welcoming than Pansy.  
  
The girls all went back to unloading their bags, this time noticeably quieter. Quite silent, in fact.  
  
Sianna tried to ignore the animosity in the air as she unlatched her trunk and pulled out the same clothes she had folded up so carefully the night before. Moving really sucked. She began to transfer her now-wrinkled clothes from the trunk to her bed, which was right in the middle of all the other beds. It was situated against the end wall, with two others on the left wall and three on the right. She could tell it had been added in the only available space, as the girls' dressers and the two doors occupied the rest of the wall. The position only reaffirmed the feeling that she was an outsider barging into the middle of a close-knit group of friends. They had, after all, spent five years living together. She couldn't possibly expect to just fit right in immediately.  
  
"So, Sianna..." Katherine began awkwardly, clearly trying to be polite, "what brings you here from America?"  
  
"It's a long story..." Sianna said evasively, not really wanting to go into it but knowing that there was no other option.  
  
"We're here all night," the Pansy said with more than a touch of annoyance.  
  
Sianna barely kept herself from glaring at the back of the girl's stringy blonde head, which was buried halfway in her trunk. _Play nice, at least for now, _she reminded herself. She sighed and leaned against the bedpost, deciding to start the story from the beginning. There would be no glossing over details this time—that had caused enough trouble already.  
  
"Well, both my parents are Muggles—"  
  
"_What?" _Pansy exclaimed in blatant disbelief, standing upright and eyeing Sianna condescendingly. Sianna looked back with a deliberately blank face.  
  
All the girls had looked up in unwelcoming surprise at that statement. An impossibly tense moment passed before Katherine blurted, "You heard the girl." Sianna could tell that she was acting as the required mediator only for the sake of keeping the peace. "Go on, Sianna," she prompted, but this time she had to force her smile. The other girls were still staring, probably wondering how she'd even gotten into Slytherin in the first place. Sianna frowned slightly to see how deeply ingrained the bias was, even in semi-nice people. She continued the story as if nothing at all had happened.  
  
"So anyway, my parents are Muggles, and..." she paused, trying to figure out which part to explain next. In an attempt to make it relatively simple, she summarized, "Well basically, I didn't know I was a witch until about two months ago. A long time ago, someone put a spell on my magic so that no one would know about it, not even me...so I never even did any accidental magic or anything until Professor Snape found out and took the spell off."  
  
Sianna stopped there, knowing that there were gaping holes in the explanation but having trouble filling them in without confusing her audience. Fortunately, neither Katherine's curiosity nor her polite propriety was dampened by her knowledge Sianna's parentage.  
  
"What's Snape got to do with it?" she wondered.  
  
"Well, I think somebody in America detected the spell because it was unauthorized, but they couldn't figure out where it was coming from because they didn't know the counter-spell or something like that," Sianna explained, not quite sure herself. "So they got Snape to do it because apparently he's really good at dealing with that type of magic. Then when he'd figured the whole crazy thing out, he persuaded my parents to send me to Hogwarts instead of an American school...so here I am," she finished.  
  
The room got quiet again for a minute, and Sianna went back to her almost empty trunk. Only her books and some toiletries were left. She was on her way to the bathroom to put her things away when Katherine asked another question. She was obviously struggling to get the entire story straight, no gaps.  
  
"Wait...so why did you have a spell on you in the first place if your parents are Muggles and you'd never heard of wizards or anything?"  
  
Sianna wavered for a moment, but decided to answer the question truthfully. Everyone would find out eventually anyway, right?  
  
"Well, the thing is...my real parents—my biological parents—might actually be wizards. Nobody knows, really. See, the parents I told you about, the Muggles, they're actually my adoptive parents," she simplified. She really didn't want to tell them about the whole complicated shenanigan at the hospital.  
  
"Oh," Katherine replied lamely, looking a little shameful of her jumping to conclusions.  
  
"Yeah...so for all I know, I could be pureblood just as easily as Muggle- born," Sianna added, hoping to put a stop to the Greater-Than-Thou looks that Pansy kept sending her way. When no one said anything, she ducked into the bathroom and tried to find a place for her things.  
  
There were two tiny shower cubicles accompanied by three toilets and an entire wall of mirror, stretching from the countertop to the ceiling. Unfortunately, there were only three sinks, but the ample counter space made up for it. Sianna hung her towel and make-up bag on one of the many hooks and went back to her trunk.  
  
She hauled out a stack of books with a grunt off effort and let them fall on her bed before bending back down to grab the rest. She had far more schoolbooks than most, as she was expected to progress through more than one level of magic in a year. As she shuffled through the volumes, though, she came across something that was neither a textbook nor one of the Muggle novels she'd brought from home.  
  
Sianna had entirely forgotten about the bumpy little paper-wrapped package that the Weasley twins had given her that day in Diagon Alley. They'd probably spent half the summer wondering whether she'd tested it or not...  
  
The knot in the string refused to loosen, and Sianna spent quite a few minutes working at it before Abigail noticed her struggling.  
  
"Need help?" she offered bluntly, turning from her bed to face Sianna's.  
  
Sianna looked up with surprise and laughed, then offered the stubborn package to her housemate. "I can't get the damn string undone," she explained.  
  
Abigail laughed shortly and pulled a proportionately short and stubby wand from her pocket. She performed a quick severing charm and handed the wrapped object back to Sianna.  
  
"What is that thing?" Katherine asked as Sianna began tearing at the many layers of paper.  
  
"No clue," she replied honestly. "I met the Weasley twins in a joke shop at the beginning of the summer and they gave it to me, wouldn't say what it was."  
  
Pansy, overhearing the conversation, sneered and said pompously, "The Weasleys can't afford to be giving _anything _away."  
  
"Oh please, Pansy," Katherine scolded. "They can hardly help that they're poor."  
  
"They could have helped it if they'd ever figured out how to brew a simple contraceptive."  
  
Katherine cocked her head to the side and agreed, "Well yes, that's true." They both cracked into a fit of giggles at the thought.  
  
Then, with a final rip, what seemed like yards of paper came unwrapped, and out fell several colorful glass bottles, one for each color of the rainbow. They were completely plain and unlabeled.  
  
"What are they?" Sianna asked Katherine, who was standing by the bed and watching curiously.  
  
"I've no idea," she said, picking up the red bottle and opening it with a twist and a snap. She sniffed and exclaimed, "It smells like cherry!"  
  
"It's probably just some kind of drink," Sally-Anne said dully.  
  
"No way," Katherine argued. "You know the Weasleys...they would never give anyone something they hadn't messed with. They must have done something to it."  
  
Katherine screwed the cap back on and handed the bottle back to Sianna.  
  
"What, you're not gonna try it?" Sianna asked disappointedly.  
  
"Are you mad? It'll probably turn my head into a cherry or something!" Sianna chuckled a little at the thought of Katherine starring in a "Gushers" commercial...  
  
"Well, if you won't do it, I will."  
  
The four other girls looked curious, but no one else went over to watch.  
  
Sianna shrugged at Katherine and uncapped the bottle ceremoniously, taking a deep breath. "Well, bottoms up!" she said and took a huge gulp of the overly sweet liquid. The taste was strangely reminiscent of homemade Gatorade with too much powder and not enough water.  
  
All six girls (even Pansy) waited with baited breath for something to happen.  
  
Nothing did.  
  
"Well that was anti-climactic," Sianna sighed, twisting the cap tight and letting the bottle plunk back down onto the bed.  
  
"Yeah, all it did was turn your finger red," Katherine pouted. Sianna looked at her hands. Sure enough, the index finger of her right hand was red from base to nail.  
  
"Huh. I didn't even notice that. Odd," she mused, wiping her finger on her pants to see if the color would come off. It did, but with an interesting side effect.  
  
"My pants! Ah fuck, these are my favorites!" Sianna whined. Every last bit of her jeans, from the zipper to the inside of the pockets, was the exact shade of red as the formerly innocent cherry liquid. Damn Weasleys.  
  
"That's fantastic! Can I try?" Katherine asked excitedly. She was holding a sweater of the most disgusting shade of green imaginable.  
  
"Please, do," Sianna said, staring at the sweater in horror and offering the array of bottles. Both girls laughed as the sweater turned popsicle- blue, and Sianna was suddenly very glad that at least one person in Slytherin was willing to befriend a Muggle-raised, possibly Muggle-born witch.

* * *

Sianna was the last to wake the next morning, a Tuesday morning, which meant...classes.  
  
She, of course, would not have any actual classes until five o'clock that evening, but that did not mean that her professors hadn't found ample amounts of work to fill the time until then. Professor Snape in particular liked to emphasize the importance of out-of-classroom research, and had left her a lengthy list of ingredients with whose properties she was to be familiar before her next session with him.  
  
She stumbled into the shower with her eyes still closed as the others were organizing their things and heading upstairs. Well, she'd never been one to eat much breakfast anyway.  
  
When Sianna finally made it to the Great Hall (still in time for food, she noticed with satisfaction), it was entirely full. Before she sat down, though, there was someone she wanted to talk to.  
  
She walked straight past the Slytherins, two aisles over and up to find Fred and George Weasley joking with their Gryffindor friends. She tapped them both on the shoulder, and they turned around simultaneously.  
  
"Hey," Sianna said cheerily. "Long time no see. Sorry I never wrote during vacation, I was just so busy I forgot."  
  
The twins looked at each other oddly and remained silent. Only then did Sianna realize that the people around them had gone quiet as well, and that the Gryffindors were staring at her like she'd sprouted a second head. The twins turned back to the table.  
  
She crouched down to their level and whispered, "What's with you guys?"  
  
One of them—she couldn't tell which—turned halfway and answered without looking in her eyes, "Listen, you probably shouldn't be talking to us."  
  
"And why's that?"  
  
A boy across the table who had been listening interrupted, "Just go back to your own table, _Slytherin_."  
  
If looks could kill, that boy would have been six feet under in before his heart could beat one last time. Sianna turned her gaze questioningly to the twins, but they couldn't bring themselves to raise their eyes from the table.  
  
Sianna stood in scornful surprise and said out loud, "Are you serious? I suppose I was mistaken to think that you two might be above all that." She bent to pick up her bag, mumbling, "First they hate me 'cause I'm Muggle- born, now they hate me 'cause I'm a Slytherin. This place is just full of people who love to jump to conclusions..." She kept muttering as she stalked off angrily. If they didn't have a decent reason not to speak to her, she would give them one.

* * *

Sianna checked her watch again, for the fifth time in as many minutes. She had been right to guess that Snape would keep his class in session until the very last moment. She fingered the glass bottle in her bag excitedly, eager to exact her revenge on those infuriating Gryffindors...  
  
Finally, the double doors of the Potions classroom banged open and students began filing out hurriedly. Sianna, hidden around the corner, took a quick swig out of the green watermelon bottle before stashing it back in her bag, always careful to keep her index finger _away _from everything else.  
  
The exceedingly rude seventh year from that morning sauntered out of the class in the middle of the crowd, flanked by several giggling classmates. Sianna chuckled. Pretty soon they would have something real to laugh at.  
  
No one saw her slip into the group, just as no one noticed her slide right back out into the shadows. They were all too busy watching lollipop-green pigment bleed all the way from their classmate's hand to his toes, even into the inside of his ears. Every bit of skin was coated in unwashable color. Sianna couldn't restrain an amused smirk at her victim's confused screeches. She'd never heard a boy's voice crack in quite that manner...  
  
She had to take an alternate route to the Transfiguration classroom because the stupid boy and his dimwitted friends wouldn't get out of the middle of the hallway. Besides, no decent perpetrator was _ever _caught near the scene of the crime.

* * *

After that first seventh year, the Quidditch team members were the first to go green. Sianna thought that was appropriate...you know, for the sake of team spirit and all. They weren't the only ones, though. Slowly, the whole of Gryffindor House was turning candy green, and no one seemed to know why or how. Not one of the lot was safe, except the first years (they'd never done anything wrong) and the Weasley twins (who else would she blame it on if someone tried to get her in trouble?). Sianna thought Harry Potter looked particularly appetizing in that shade, as it was a very close match to his eyes. Ron Weasley's hair, on the other hand, rather ruined the effect for him.  
  
The sudden burst of chaos was the talk of the school, but the only people that had any inkling as to what the hell was going on were the six fifth- year Slytherin girls. They kept quiet, though, at Sianna's absolute insistence. Nobody was getting caught, if she had anything to say on the matter.  
  
Determination to exact large-scale revenge unscathed would not keep her safe though. Someone—one single, dangerous mind—managed to connect the dots. The argument at breakfast, the green Gryffindors popping up all over the library and the dungeons, the annoyingly haughty look on Sianna Castell's face...oh yes, Hermione had it all figured out. All she needed was a shred of concrete evidence, which really wasn't all that hard to find. It just took a little patience and a set of sharp eyes.  
  
Sianna didn't know any of that, though, when she received an ominous owl one breakfast time nearly a week into term.  
  
"Oy, Sianna," Abigail said from across the table. "Heads up!"  
  
Sianna looked up and was promptly hit between the eyes by a rolled up bit of parchment tied with a string.  
  
"But I never get mail," she said with surprise.  
  
"Go on, open it," Katherine prompted. Sianna did so, with no small amount of curiosity.  
  
_To Miss Sianna Castell,  
Your presence is required in my office at precisely nine o'clock this  
morning. I have received word of several school code violations that I  
wish to discuss with you. Both your accusers and their Head of House  
wish to be present. DO NOT BE LATE.  
  
Professor Severus Snape  
  
_"Damn," Katherine whispered as she read over Sianna's shoulder.  
  
"Too right," Sianna agreed. Well, this was it...the end of her little scam. But she would not go down without a fight.  
  
"In his office? Nothing good ever happens in there. You'd better have one hell of an excuse," she warned.  
  
"Oh I will," Sianna reassured them. "You think I didn't consider that? My excuse was built in from the beginning, hon." Her voice conveyed far more confidence than she felt. "I'm not a Slytherin for nothing, you know," she added as she rose from the table. She had twenty minutes before her meeting, and she was going to spend that precious time hiding all traces of the Rainbow Surprise, as they'd thoughtfully dubbed the drink. It was cheesy, she knew, but it had been the best they could think of at the time.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, with the candy liquid securely stashed and her defending case mentally reviewed and prepared, Sianna left the dormitories for Snape's office. She preferred to arrive early and have to wait than late and be in even deeper water.  
  
She knocked twice and backed up a step, taking a calming breath and straightening her shoulders. When the door opened, she wasn't too surprised to see that Professor Snape was already inside, along with Professor McGonagall, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The "Golden Trio," as she'd heard several people call them. The "Dream Team." Sianna wasn't really too familiar with the three students, but she'd certainly heard enough about them, especially Potter. All four Gryffindors looked disgruntled and angry (particularly Potter and Weasley, as they were still green and would remain that way for at least another twelve hours), but Professor Snape's expression was perfectly blank. If any emotion was apparent, it was slight amusement. Sianna found that immeasurably encouraging.  
  
"You asked to see me, Professor?" she began innocently, feigning confusion at the room's occupants.  
  
"Yes, Miss Castell. You see, Miss Granger here believes that you have been turning her classmates green," Snape informed her with a hint of mocking disbelief in his voice. "You are here, essentially, to hear the case she's made against you. Please sit."  
  
The chairs were arranged in an arc facing Snape's desk. Sianna took the one on the end, the only one left, which just happened to face Granger's seat. Oh, goody. Sianna looked directly at her classmates with her face schooled into a skeptical smirk, as if she seriously doubted the validity of the charges.  
  
"Okay," she began awkwardly when no one spoke. "What gives you that idea, Granger?"  
  
"I saw you," Granger revealed smugly. "I've been watching you for days, ever since I started to suspect you. You're there every time a new person turns green—"  
  
"How does that prove that it was me?" Sianna asked reasonably. "If you were there to see me every time someone turned green, then it could just as easily have been you doing it, right? You're the Transfiguration genius anyway, not me."  
  
"What?" Granger asked, clearly a bit confused. "Who cares if I'm good at Transfiguration?"  
  
"Well, it would take a fair bit of skill to change the color of an object without altering its form. You should know that," Sianna said, eliciting an offended glare from Granger. "And Professor McGonagall can personally attest to the fact that I have hardly come close to attaining that level of competency." She looked over at McGonagall expectantly and received a reluctant nod of agreement.  
  
"It's true. She can hardly turn paper into cloth as it is," the she stated honestly.  
  
"But I don't think she's doing it with her wand, professor," Granger said.  
  
"Then I would really be fascinated to hear how, Miss Granger," Snape said silkily.  
  
Granger looked down for a moment, inadvertently revealing her uncertainty. _She really shouldn't have done that, _Sianna observed, seeing that Snape had noticed the movement as well.  
  
"I think she might be using a potion, sir," she said quietly, "but I don't know what."  
  
"I know of no potion that could turn a person green without having them ingest it," Snape countered immediately. "And I am fairly certain that Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, however inobservant, would have noticed someone forcing a potion down their throats," he added snidely. Sianna had to remind herself not to smile triumphantly.  
  
"But still, everyone knows she's mad at Fred and George, so she does have a motive," Potter volunteered. Sianna smirked with raised eyebrows. Granger had probably told him to say that.  
  
"Fred and George Weasley?" McGonagall interrupted out of curiosity. "What have they got to do with any of this?"  
  
"We saw her arguing with them the first day of classes, sir," Granger explained.  
  
"Honestly, they're more likely to be behind all this than I am," Sianna argued sarcastically. (Really, it was partly true. They'd given her the means, had they not?) "I mean, they're the ones always pulling jokes on their friends, from what I hear."  
  
"Why would they turn their own housemates _green_?" Weasley asked skeptically.  
  
"I dunno, you tell me. They're your brothers."  
  
Snape sighed with impatience. "Unless you have more compelling evidence, Miss Granger, I am going to have to ask you to drop these absurd accusations," he said with obvious annoyance.  
  
"But we saw her—"Weasley defended desperately.  
  
"_Enough_, Mr. Weasley. You have already wasted a sufficient amount of my time. Now if I'm not mistaken, you three have a class beginning in..." he checked his watch, "ten minutes. If you are late, it will most certainly not be my responsibility."  
  
Potter, Weasley, and Granger stood up slowly and left without a word, and none dared to look up except to glare evilly at Sianna, who could barely keep herself from blowing one fat, victorious raspberry at the lot of them.  
  
Professor McGonagall rose to leave as well, but she paused to whisper something inaudible in Snape's ear before gazing strangely at Sianna and exiting the office.  
  
So Sianna was left alone in her chair, with Professor Snape staring at her from behind his desk.  
  
"I do believe you have some research to do, Miss Castell," he dismissed, with a shadow of a smile.  
  
A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long...I was on vacation and my computer access limited, plus my own computer was being temperamental and wouldn't save anything to a disk. Still won't, as a matter of fact. Damn stupid machinery...  
  
Lauren04- About the thing with the torches...remember, I'm American, so to me a torch is a big stick with fire on the end, not a flashlight. I just imagine these dark hallways lit with torches in brackets on the walls...ya know, the medieval dungeon sort of thing. Sorry for the confusion there.  
  
And to the rest of you lovely people, who I _know _are there reading my story and not reviewing (which should be the eighth deadly sin)...some feedback would be really, really, really beyond great, especially if you have some constructive criticism for me!


	11. Trust Wisely

Chapter Eleven: Trust Wisely  
  
Although Sianna had firmly established a state of enmity between her and most of Gryffindor, her Slytherin roommates were considerably more amiable after the "Green Gryffindors" incident. Somehow, she'd proven her "worthiness" and suggested to the formerly hostile girls that maybe—just maybe—she really did belong in their house. In any case, they gradually began to get used to her presence, even if she had not been accepted into the fold entirely. That would take some more time.  
  
The rest of her house, however, was not quite so accepting. This was all too apparent the day of Quidditch trials, when Sianna signed up to try for one of the Beater positions. Derrick and Bole, the old Beaters, had graduated the year before, along with one of the Chasers.  
  
The sun was setting, falling into a clear, if somewhat foggy night. The prospective players lined up on the damp pitch with their brooms in hand as the four existing team members paced in front of them, looking the group up and down in assessment. The new captain, a seventh year called Montague, called his players together in a conference, and Sianna felt rather sick when she noticed the way they eyed her during their discussion. She made an extra effort to stand up straight and look tough—or at least, tougher than she really felt.  
  
When they finally concluded their conversation, Draco, Bletchley (the Keeper), and Warrington (a Chaser), began pacing again, but Montague stopped directly in front of Sianna.  
  
"You," he said, pointing as if she could not see to whom he was speaking, "out."  
  
"What?! I haven't even flown yet, you can't call me out," she argued.  
  
"I'm the captain, and you're out if I say you're out," he growled threateningly. "I won't have some jumped-up mudblood brat playing on my team, talent or no talent. So you might as well just foot it off this pitch."  
  
It was Sianna's turn to growl after hearing that, and she could barely keep herself from chucking her loaned broomstick in his square, pimply face and stalking off. She stood her ground, quietly seething, and stared at him until he spoke again.  
  
"Fine, stand there all night. I don't give a damn. But you're not getting in the air, no matter how long you wait," he promised with a smug sneer before continuing down the line. By that time, they'd attracted the attention of every other person on the field. Sianna made sure to send the other three team members one fuming glare apiece. Warrington and Bletchley just laughed, but Sianna was pleasantly shocked when she saw Draco look away. Was that _shame _on his face?  
  
When she was sure that they all knew how angry she was (not that it really helped), she retreated up the bleachers to watch the rest of the proceedings. They team drilled and studied their hopefuls, weeding out the worst and continuing on with the not-so-bad players. Even Sianna could tell that none of them were really impressive.  
  
In the end, they chose the fastest as the Chaser and the two biggest as the Beaters. Sianna had seen those to hulking blobs following Draco all over the place, but she could not recall their names. They looked as if they possessed about half a brain each and twice as much mass as was normal for any fifteen year old, wizard or no. _So much for that fantastic Quidditch team, _Sianna thought ruefully, recalling Draco's proud description of his house.  
  
As the lingering sunlight finally disappeared, the last of the players left the pitch, patting each other on the back in congratulations, and Sianna climbed back down the stadium stairs to the grass. On a whim, she mounted her broom and soared up to the sky, mostly just to spite Montague, but the feeling just wasn't the same. She was too angry, too upset to enjoy flying that night.  
  
She landed with an unrestrained sigh and slumped shoulders, a posture that clearly conveyed her emotion. She looked up longingly, gazing at the amazing clarity of the night sky. It was a view that normally filled her with a certain sense of awe, but that night, she couldn't help but think that she wouldn't mind trading the spectacle for someone to talk to, a friend that could at the very least offer a comforting hug.  
  
She didn't turn when she heard the slow, measured footsteps in the grass behind her. They stopped beside her, and Sianna was a little surprised to hear Draco speak.  
  
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he said quietly, following her gaze.  
  
She looked down at her feet, then turned to the side and backed up a step to see him better.  
  
"What are you doing here?" she asked tiredly.  
  
"The same thing you are," he answered evasively. The darkness partially masked her annoyed look, but he could sense it just as well, and he admitted reluctantly, "I wanted to talk to you."  
  
"I wasn't aware we were on speaking terms," Sianna said, directly her gaze upward once more.  
  
Draco sighed and looked at his shoes. "What happened today, at the try- outs...that wasn't right," he said, almost apologetically.  
  
"Damn straight it wasn't," Sianna agreed crudely.  
  
"It wasn't my idea," he stated, only slightly defense. "I told them how good you are, but Warrington insisted. You should've at least gotten a chance."  
  
Sianna sighed again. "It's not your fault, not really. I guess I should've expected it," she lamented. She didn't truly blame Draco...she couldn't ask him to argue with superiors over a principle he was expected to agree with. She turned and began to trudge back up to the castle. Draco remained on the pitch for a moment, but then he seemed to come to a decision and jogged to catch up with Sianna.  
  
"Sianna...I can tell them to lay off if you want," he offered awkwardly. "I mean, just because you're Muggle-born doesn't mean—"  
  
"Muggle-raised, not Muggle-born," Sianna corrected in a fit of impatience. "If it's such a huge deal, you guys should at least keep the facts straight."  
  
Draco looked entirely perplexed, although Sianna couldn't see it. "What?"  
  
"What do you mean, _what_?"  
  
"You told me your parents were Muggles..."  
  
Sianna sighed and stared off into the forest to keep from glaring at Draco. "First of all, _I _never told you anything, one of the professors did. Secondly, it's my _adoptive _parents who are Muggles. I've no idea who my real—did you see that?" Her unfocused gaze had spotted something moving in the trees, but she wasn't sure what. Sianna stopped in her tracks and took a few involuntary steps towards the woods, squinting into the deepening darkness. _Something _was walking upright, just behind those first branches...  
  
"Huh? What?"  
  
It looked like a human, but she couldn't be too sure...  
  
"What is it?" Draco persisted, trying to follow her line of sight. He leaned over her shoulder and looked past her pointing finger. It took a moment to find, but eventually Draco eventually saw it. It had to be a person, nothing else could walk quite that way. But how could they have gotten through the wards? Everyone always said that Hogwarts was the safest place in England, and not just anyone could get past those gates.  
  
As he watched intently, Sianna started to slink away towards the woods in a heedless effort to see the person more clearly. Now she was almost entirely positive that it was a man—  
  
Draco snapped out of his focus when he felt that Sianna was gone. He cursed softly when he saw her sneaking down the slope, and put on a burst of speed to catch up with her before she reached the forest. The girl had obviously forgotten the danger...  
  
She gasped as Draco caught her arm and pulled her back, stumbling.  
  
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" he reprimanded in her ear. "We have no idea who that is! You're going to get yourself killed!"  
  
But Sianna kept her eyes on the forest, watching her quarry disappear into the cover of the trees and out of her sight. When she could no longer see him, she relaxed in Draco's grip and turned around to face him.  
  
"I saw his face," she told him with frustration, "but he was wearing a mask...I couldn't tell who it was."  
  
Draco dropped her arm as a suspicious expression spread across his features. "What kind of mask?"  
  
"It was white, I'm pretty sure," she said honestly. "Why?"  
  
Draco grabbed hold of her arm again and began running back up the hill towards the light of the castle. "Come on," he urged, "we have to get to the castle." Sianna just followed him blindly, unsure of the source of his haste but aware that the white mask had struck some degree of fear in his heart. She breathed an internal sigh of relief when they finally crossed the threshold of the castle and slowed to a walk. They were both too busy catching their breath to speak, until they reached the passage to the dungeons and Sianna stopped suddenly.  
  
"You go down, I'm going to Professor Dumbledore's office," she told him, turning around.  
  
"No!" Draco said urgently, cringing when his voice echoed in the stone passage. He lowered his voice and reiterated, "You can't tell him—"  
  
"You don't think he should know that there is a strange man in a white mask running around the grounds?" she asked incredulously. "Whatever, I'm going," she dismissed, starting to walk away.  
  
Draco caught her arm (he seems to be doing that a lot lately, doesn't he?) and pulled her back. "No, don't! You don't understand..." he stalled.  
  
"Then by all means, enlighten me, Draco!" she said with harried impatience.  
  
Draco froze in a mental panic. How was he supposed to explain why Dumbledore couldn't know about a Death Eater hiding unnoticed at Hogwarts? Uncle Severus would be...less than pleased if his status were revealed, to Sianna or Dumbledore.  
  
"Please, Sianna," he entreated, "just trust me on this...just this one time, take my word for it. Dumbledore _cannot know _about this."  
  
Sianna looked about as ready to trust him as any half-decent Gryffindor would have, but she sighed with what seemed like resignation, and Draco was fairly sure that she would not go running off to the headmaster as soon as he released her arm. When he let go, she traipsed sulkily down the corridor ahead of him, clearly intent on keeping some distance between them. He sighed and smoothed his hand over his glossy white-gold hair before following her down to the dorms. There was still some lingering anxiety from that close call...but at least she'd listened in the end.  
  
Or had she?  
  
Three hours later, when the Common Room had finally emptied, Sianna snuck silently out of the dormitories and treaded softly up the stairs, utilizing the nearest shortcut out of the dungeons. She checked behind her periodically for any sign of a follower, but her passage remained luckily unhindered. When she arrived at the entrance of the headmaster's fifth- floor office, she flattened against the wall beside the guarding gargoyle and whispered, "Jelly Bellies." A breath of relief escaped when the gargoyle slid to the side, allowing her passage. Thank Merlin Professor Dumbledore hadn't seen fit to change the password since the last time she'd visited.  
  
Her feet ascended the spiral stairs quickly but halted quite abruptly when she heard voices on the other side of the door. Why would Dumbledore have visitors at this time of night? She shrugged, hoping his meeting wasn't too important, and knocked three times loudly. The voices silenced and there was a moment of tense quiet before the headmaster poked his head out the door and raised his brows in surprise at his guest.  
  
"Miss Castell, you are out past curfew," he informed her politely, but she could detect a hint of a question in his tone.  
  
"Professor, I have something very important to tell you," she replied urgently, hoping he would not send her away.  
  
"Oh really? Well then by all means, come in," he said, opening the door and ushering her in. Both seated themselves, Dumbledore behind his desk and Sianna facing him.  
  
"Now what is it you want to tell me?" he asked curiously. Sianna was glad to hear no condescension in his voice.  
  
"Well, Draco and I were walking back from Quidditch trials earlier, and—well, we were rather late because he'd wanted to talk to me about something," she explained rapidly. "So it was dark out and as we walked back I could've sworn I saw someone in the forest, and before Draco could stop me I got up closer to see what it was—I know, it was very reckless and stupid, but that's not the point," she dismissed. "I had to tell you because I definitely saw a man in the forest, dressed in all black and wearing a white mask. I thought you needed to know."  
  
Dumbledore sat back in slight surprise. "Why didn't you come to me earlier, Miss Castell?"  
  
"Because Draco wouldn't let me! He said that you couldn't know about, but he wouldn't say why...and I must admit, I don't trust him entirely," she confessed. "And I couldn't get out until now, everyone was in the Common Room, they'd have stopped me."  
  
There was a quiet noise behind her, like a piece of paper had fallen to the floor with a tiny rustle, but when Sianna spun in her chair, saw nothing. She turned back around to find Dumbledore scrutinizing her carefully, looking thoughtful. Sianna didn't know what to make of his reaction. She'd expected a bit more interest, at least.  
  
"Professor?" she addressed cautiously.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"What was the white mask?" she inquired. "Draco seemed to know, but he wouldn't tell me. He seemed almost afraid of it, to tell you the truth."  
  
"Ah, the mask..." he said slowly. "Miss Castell, do you know what a Death Eater is?" he asked in reply. She nodded solemnly. "Good. Well, Death Eaters are known for their uniform of black robes and a silvery-white mask. Does that explain Mr. Malfoy's reaction?"  
  
Sianna's brow creased and her eyes narrowed. "Do you mean to say that you think the man in the forest was a Death Eater?"  
  
"Yes. In fact, I know he was," Dumbledore replied calmly.  
  
"What are you going to do about it?" she asked seriously.  
  
The headmaster seemed slightly taken aback by that question. "It will be taken care of," he responded elusively. Sianna turned her head to the side and regarded him with one piercing eye, but said nothing.  
  
"Now is that all, Miss Castell?" Dumbledore asked. She nodded and stood.  
  
"Thank you for your time, professor," she said politely as she turned to leave. She was nearly at the door when she stopped in her tracks at something on the floor. She toed what looked like a stiff piece of cloth and gasped when it turned over. She bent to pick it up...a pale, shining oval shape with holes like empty eye sockets.  
  
"_It will be taken care of_, will it?" she quoted savagely, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees and holding up the artifact with a look of pure disgust and mounting distrust on her face. She heard a whispered curse behind her and whirled to see Professor Snape striding out of an inconspicuous corner with every semblance of rage and vexation. Sianna tried to back away as he approached, but he grabbed her arm (which was getting quite sore by that point) and pulled her back into the chair in front of Professor Dumbledore.  
  
"What's going on here?" she asked accusingly, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.  
  
"I'm sorry, Albus. It fell, and I couldn't get to it in time without making noise," he explained, obviously disappointed and annoyed with himself. He slumped into the chair beside Sianna and ran a hand over his face.  
  
Dumbledore didn't answer, only hung his head in his hands with exhaustion that had not been apparent a moment ago. "I'll Obliviate if you wish, Severus," he offered tiredly.  
  
"No, Albus," Snape refused almost immediately, just as he had with Harry Potter. "No one is having their memory altered tonight."  
  
He sat heavily and Dumbledore said, "In that case, I think we both have some explaining to do." Snape nodded and sat up stiffly.  
  
"Professor Snape," Dumbledore said bluntly, "is a Death Eater."  
  
"I gathered as much," Sianna replied cheekily, glancing sideways at her potions professor.  
  
"But he is not a Death Eater as you would think of them," Dumbledore corrected. "He also works for me...as a spy."  
  
This caused Sianna to raise her eyebrows cynically. "And which side are you really on, Professor?" she asked tactlessly, addressing Snape directly.  
  
He sneered at her and spat, "Guess."  
  
"Now, Severus," Dumbledore reprimanded halfheartedly. He gazed at Sianna over his spectacles and assured her, "He labors for the same cause you and I do, merely under different pretenses. That's what he is doing here: he had a meeting with Lord Voldemort tonight and he is reporting back to me," Dumbledore clarified, hoping that it would convince this overly skeptical teenager.  
  
Sianna contemplated both her professors for a long, drawn-out moment, as if judging their worthiness. Dumbledore's sparkling blue eyes entreated her to believe, but Snape seemed to challenge her with his piercing black stare, daring her to disagree...she held the Potions Master's eyes as she sat back and nodded in understanding and acceptance.  
  
"Now you understand, Miss Castell," Snape began, "that this information _does not leave this room_. You will under _no _circumstances repeat _anything _you have learned since you entered this office, and you will _not _speak of your experience with Mr. Malfoy earlier this evening. _To anyone_," he stressed.  
  
Sianna nodded with all gravity and promised, "I won't, professor. I understand." She was a little offended by his condescending tone, but she could comprehend that his need for secrecy made the statements necessary, so she said nothing of it.  
  
"You may return to your dormitory, Miss Castell," Dumbledore dismissed after a moment of quiet. "And remember—not a word," he cautioned, "or you will put us all in grave danger."  
  
Sianna rose, nodding resolutely, and exited quickly. She would certainly have something to consider that night, and she was not expecting much sleep.  
  
Back in the headmaster's office, Dumbledore said quietly, "I hope she's as trustworthy as I think she is."  
  
"I hope so too," Snape replied before he gathered his mask and Flooed down to his chambers in the dungeons. He added to himself, _She had better be...  
_

_  
_A/N: I know this chapter is pretty short, compared to the others, but I stuck it in here because it had to happen. It took a couple rewrites, but I think I've got it going in vaguely the right direction. You can see, this marks the entrance of the Dark Lord in the plot line (see, I told you he'd be along sooner or later! Or did I? Oh, I don't remember...), so you can bet on more Snape and more Draco. YAY What was that? Are those cheers in the background? Yeah, that's what I thought...  
  
Sage and Snape- I was thinking, maybe I should just leave my reviews for you at the end of each chapter I post. I can't wait until this piece of junk gets fixed...but _anyway_, I know you've been waiting for that moment of revelation, and I'm here to tell you IT'S COMING! Next chapter, all is revealed to you, I promise. I just had to get his in there first.  
  
And to all you other crazy people who _don't review_...just click the little button. It's right there! Go down...now to the left...no, other left...yes, that's it! Go for it, say some mean stuff, I can take it. I'm still trying to get my number of reviews up to the number of chapters I've got posted...


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